DUI when NOT Driving

Disclaimer: I am very much against any sort of DUI and I think that the legal limit should be 0.00 and the penalty for DUI should be the same as for attempted murder for every person that comes close to the person. But with that said, there should be a reasonable aspect to the laws.

I saw a YouTube video about suppressing evidence regarding a DUI arrest in Kentucky which had a very different view than what I am familiar with. It mentioned that there are two different views regarding what is DUI. It turns out that the law in Kentucky is far more reasonable than in many other places since it requires that the person show some sign of actually driving the vehicle. In other places, you can be arrested for DUI even if you never drove and never intended to drive.

Imagine you are at a bar and have too much to drink. It is late and the bar closes, so what do you do? In some locations, if you go to your vehicle then you can be arrested for DUI since you have control of the vehicle by having the keys. Now, you can hide the keys and claim that you don't have the keys, at which point you can't legally be arrested for DUI, but you have to know that you have to play such games. If it is cold and you need to start the vehicle in order to run the heater, then it can be even worse.

In the case in the video, the person was at a bar and went out to the vehicle. A person at a fast food place across the street saw the person trying to get into the vehicle, so they called 911. Some time later the police arrived and found the person in the vehicle and the engine was running, but there was no sign or evidence that the person ever moved the vehicle or intended to move the vehicle. The person said he wasn't driving, that his bar tab was still open, he still had tokens for games in the bar, and that he intended to go back in. Instead, he was arrested for DUI. The judge found that there was nothing to indicate that he intended to drive, so all the evidence was suppressed for the DUI, indicating that the case would be dismissed.

Such laws make it hard to convict people of DUI, but it also makes it much more fair since only those who actually drive are guilty of DUI.

This also means that in many cases the person is better off to try driving home than to sleep in the vehicle and that doesn't make any sense and it endangers everyone. If you park your vehicle, then it is far more likely that the police might notice or a person might call the police about the vehicle being parked. But it seems that the law is this way in order to make it far easier for the police to arrest people, even if they are not driving.

Part of the problem is that I don't think that most people are aware of such insane laws in which a person can be arrested for DUI when they never actually drove and didn't intend to.