dwd-a danger that causes car accident

Nearly 100,000 car accidents each year is caused by DWD--Driving While Drowsy. Approximately 1,500 people are killed in car accidents because of it. According to sleep experts, driving tests on someone being awake for 18 to 19 hours results in the similar findings as someone who has an alcohol level of .1.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a typical automobile accident related to DWD--driving while drowsy--has the following characteristics:

The problem occurs during late night/early morning or mid afternoon.
The car accident is likely to be serious.
A single vehicle leaves the roadway.
The automobile accident occurs on a high-speed road.
The driver does not attempt to avoid the car accident.
The driver is alone in the vehicle.

Although no driver is immune, the people highest at risk are young people (ages 16 to 29), especially males; shift workers whose sleep is disrupted by working at night or working long or irregular hours; and people with untreated sleep apnea syndrome or narcolepsy.

Studies have showed that taking a short nap (about 15 to 20 minutes) and consuming caffeine equivalent to two cups of coffee do make a short-term difference. However, other suggestions such as opening a window or listening to the radio have not proven to remedy DWD.

If you are too drowsy to drive, pull over and rest. Call a friend to pick you up. Do something so you and all the other drivers and passengers on the road are not injured or killed because of your driving while drowsy.

In my practice, I have represented families who have suffered because someone else caused an automobile accident because they were too tired to drive safely. Families can be forever changed because of a car accident. I have seen it happen too many times!

Avoid a DUI Conviction

5 Tips to Help Avoid a DUI Conviction


If you are ever arrested for drunk driving (also called DUI for "driving under the influence" or DWI for "driving while intoxicated"), your experience will begin with an officer stopping you because of some questionable driving pattern, or possibly because you encountered a DUI "sobriety checkpoint" or you were involved in an accident. The officer will approach your car and ask some questions. You will then be asked to perform "field sobriety tests". He may also ask you to breath into a handheld device, technically called a PBT or "preliminary breath test". You will then be arrested. On the way to the police station, you will be asked to submit to a breath or blood test -- and told that if you don't, your driver's license will be suspended.

What should you do and say during all of this to minimize the risk of a criminal conviction and a license suspension?

1. Politely decline to answer any questions without an attorney present. It is a cardinal rule in legal circles that only incriminating statements are included in police reports and later testified to in court; statements pointing to innocence are invariably ignored, forgotten or misinterpreted. Bluntly put, whatever you say will almost never help you and can only hurt you.

2. Decline to take any so-called field sobriety tests. These are theoretically intended to determine impairment, but in fact are designed for failure. In most cases, the officer has already made the decision to arrest and is simply going through the motions and gathering further evidence to bolster his case (he is the one who decides whether you "pass" or "fail"). In almost all states, you are not required to submit to this "testing". It's unlikely that taking it will change the officer's decision to arrest.

3. Decline to take a "PBT" (preliminary breath test). These handheld units are carried by officers in the field to help decide whether to arrest or not and are notoriously inaccurate. In most states, drivers are not required to submit to these tests (in some they are required if you are under 21). Although most states admit the results of these tests into evidence only to show the presence of alcohol, some permit them to prove the actual blood-alcohol level.

4. Do you choose blood, breath -- or refuse to take any chemical test? This is a case-by-case decision, and involves a number of considerations. First, although blood tests are subject to many possible errors, they are generally more accurate than so-called "breathalyzers"; if you feel your blood-alcohol level is below .08%, then you might want to choose the blood test. Secondly, whether to submit to testing at all requires some knowledge of your state's laws -- specifically, the consequences of refusing. If the increased criminal penalty and license suspension do not outweigh the possible benefit of depriving the prosecution of blood-alcohol evidence, then you may wish to refuse. Bear in mind that the prosecution will charge you with two offenses, DUI and driving with over .08% blood-alcohol; without a blood or breath test, he cannot prove the .08% charge, and there will be no chemical evidence to corroborate the officer's testimony. You should also realize that in many states chemical evidence of a very high blood-alcohol level, say over .15%, can trigger more severe penalties.

5. In almost all states, your driver's license will be immediately suspended if either (1) the chemical tests results are .08% or higher, or (2) you refuse to submit to testing. You have a right to a hearing to contest this administrative suspension, and there are many possible defenses, many of them technical in nature. This hearing is usually separate from the criminal proceedings, and involve different procedures and issues than in court; it is not uncommon to lose the criminal case but win the suspension hearing. However, as most motor vehicle departments do not really want the time and expense of providing these hearings, they tend to provide notice of the right buried in fine print given to arrestees. The critical information is the requirement that an actual demand for the hearing must be made by the arrestee -- usually within ten calendar days. If you do not contact the DMV within ten days, you lose all rights to a hearing -- no matter how good a defense you may have. Tip #5: Get an attorney right away, or make the call yourself -- and make sure you can later prove you made the call within the ten day window!