Charleston, SC DUI/DWI Law Blog

Expect to find South Carolina DUI laws to become even stricter if proposed legislation is signed into law. Previously, the emphasis was on repeat offenders driving on the road while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Now the emphasis is on the first time offender that has never had a drinking or drug related offense in the past.

South Carolina already requires repeat offenders to have an ignition interlock device upon their vehicles. What this means is that that driver is required to breathe into the device before attempting to start his or her vehicle. If alcohol is detected upon the breath, the driver will not be able to start the vehicle.

We've written in the past about North Carolina's practice of using checkpoints in order to arrest individuals suspected of drunken driving. What occurs generally involves the pulling over of drivers and conduct field sobriety tests upon individuals that are suspected of being under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Though without question, such checkpoints result in an increased amount of DUI arrests, individuals pulled over are frequently arrested for any other number of violations of the law that are unrelated to driving under the influence of some substance. Even if an individual passes a field sobriety test, he may then be arrested for expired tabs or possession of a substance that would never have been discovered if the driver had not been pulled over.

A South Carolina woman and mayor of her community recently had been publicly embarrassed due to the release of a police video concerning her arrest for a DUI. She had been pulled over for alleged erratic driving and then was administered a series of field sobriety tests.

During the arrest, police requested that she provide a urine sample. The woman stated that she would only provide such a sample if she was allowed to keep half of it as she wanted a sample of the urine tested independently. When told that this was not possible, the woman then refused to provide the urine sample.

Though an accident occurred in Pennsylvania, a recent accident shows the perils of either consenting or not consenting to blood alcohol test in South Carolina as well. An intoxicated individual states that he was actually the passenger in car that was struck head-on by another driver going the wrong way.

In the ensuing chaos, this individual was thought to be the driver of the car and was asked to submit to a blood alcohol test. When the individual refused to submit, his driver's license and commercial driver's license were both suspended for 1-year. His two attempts to appeal this particular ruling have not met with success, and he has since lost his job as a truck driver.