Failure To Become Educated and Understand The Dangers Of a Utah DUI

Most people understandably want to get out of the frying pan after being charged with a DUI, but no one wants to jump into the fire. Unfortunately, by failing to take a deep breath and immerse themselves in a quick but thorough education in Utah DUI law and consequences thereof, too many people fall victim to what we call the "let's just put it behind us," syndrome. The dangers inherent in a first time DUI however aren't the penalties that accompany it, but the danger that lurks beneath the surface once a driver becomes an "alcohol restricted" driver and what we term a "marked man (or woman)." In Utah especially, that driver becomes a "marked" man or woman.

Very often, we get calls asking about the possibility of people revisiting and reversing their rash mistake of pleading guilty made months or sometimes even years earlier. The loss of commercial driving license (or inability to obtain one), problems with employment opportunities, upward job mobility, inability to rent a car, graduate school (at least in Utah), health professions, life insurance, and social stigma are just a few reasons to become educated about DUI's and choose carefully when making such a far reaching and sometimes life altering decision such as pleading guilty to a DUI.

Thus, each and every time this marked person is stopped for any traffic violation, they are going to be put through the ringer and subjected to those unreliable field tests. And this time, when the officer doesn't smell alcohol, they will start down the medications (legal or illegal) route hoping to score gold. Again, what the uneducated person doesn't know can hurt them; because in Utah, any measurable amount of any drug, including prescription drugs for which you have a valid prescription will subject the driver to a DUI - metabolite. With the multitude of new prescription medications coming to the market, a frightening number of DUI - metabolites are now appearing on the legal horizon, and an alarming number of them are second DUI's not involving alcohol use.

How is it we wonder, that the mere charge of a crime is enough to psychically paralyze people such that they will plead guilty to a crime they may not have committed, and moreover, accept a charge with such far-reaching penalties such that they will be paying tens of thousands of dollars more in car insurance for nearly a decade following its commission? I must take a hard line in regard to getting educated about DUI's because we can see no intellectually honest argument for not taking the time to get up to speed on Utah DUI law, if only because the information is so readily available. (See www.duiblog.com) Ultimately there are few tougher things to swallow than pleading guilty to a DUI, and paying triple insurance premiums for seven years, only to discover for example, that there was a legal issue that would have resulted in outright dismissal of a case.