Impaired driving in all forms is dangerous and illegal. When drivers are behind the wheels of their vehicles, they need to be able to react if there is anything that requires their attention. It is difficult to impossible to do this if you are impaired. Many people don’t realize that you don’t have to use illegal drugs to drive impaired.
When you are accused of this type of incident, you are facing a difficult road. You can’t claim that you didn’t know about impaired driving laws when you decided to drive so you need to look beyond that point. Here are some important things to remember about drugged driving:
Even legal drugs can lead to drugged driving
Just because you don’t use illegal drugs doesn’t mean that you can’t drive drugged. Even many legal drugs, such as prescription pain medications or over-the-counter allergy medications, can have effects that lead to drugged driving charges. Any medication that might make you dizzy or fatigued can cause you to be too impaired to drive safely. There are warnings on many medications that note you shouldn’t operate heavy machinery while taking it. Typically, these are the ones that might not be safe to take if you have to drive.
Testing for drug impairment is difficult
One of the primary issues that people who are accused of impaired driving from drugs faces is that it is difficult to test for drug impairment. A person who is accused of drunk driving can have a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) test, but a test doesn’t exist that provides real-time results regarding the impairment from drugs by the driver. There is a chance that a person can be fully sober but still have drugs in his or her system. It just depends on the drug or substance and the type of testing that is done.
Options exist for a defense
You might have a variety of defense options available to you when you are facing drugged driving charges. The circumstances of the traffic stop that led to the charges might come into the picture. Remember to protect your rights in this case. You do have the right to remain silent, which is one that is usually beneficial to people who are in this position. Try to pay attention to everything that happens so that you can use any applicable information to develop your defense.