The Traffic Stop and Arrest

We all know that drinking and driving is illegal, and while you'd have to be completely oblivious to know that, I will admit that I did not fully comprehend the severity of the action. I'll keep the story brief but essentially I was driving (loaded, mind you) home from an evening with a friend at the bar, and was pulled over for speeding. After failing every sobriety test, failing to speak to the officer with any clarity or reason, and basically being obviously drunk, I was placed under arrest by Phoenix Police Department. My breathalyzer test was a .171, which is important to remember for what I'm about to tell you, which you may or may not already know.

After I failed the field sobriety tests and the breathalyzer, I was placed under arrest for suspicion of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. Since I was pulled over by a motorcycle officer, I was forced to wait, in handcuffs, by my car that I was not allowed to drive, for a police officer with a SUV. The wait seemed eternal, as I was frightened, but what came next was even worse. The Phoenix Police Department drove me around, and around, then to the police station to get in a different SUV, then around some more, and finally to a Quick Trip where they had a mobile DUI processing van set up. This process seemed like eternity, and only later did I find out that it was about 90 minutes from when I was placed into the vehicle, to the time that I was in the DUI van, and even later I found out that they sometimes do this if they suspect you have recently been drinking. The logic here, and it's good logic, is that you still have alcohol to soak into your system, and your BAC is still rising. Since I blew a .171, and had recently drank alcohol, they knew there was a chance I would land in the +.200 range, which would put me in the super-extreme category, which resulted in my citation reading super-extreme DUI. This charge of course would be amended if I fell below it.

I was finally released about 3 hours after being arrested, and had to call my parents for a ride home. My poor buddy who was in my car was told to either walk home or call for a ride, and since his cell phone was dead, he walked the 5 miles back to his house, leaving me with a feeling of guilt on top of all of the pending legal issues I was going to be facing.

I am not a lawyer, and I can't give legal advice, but I complied with every request any of the officers made, went out of my way to be affable and courteous to each and every one of them. They were all nice to me, except for the arresting officer, who insisted on treating me like I was unworthy of fair treatment. Complying with their requests paid off in the long run, and I'll explain that in further posts.