When you live in Encinitas or in a nearby part of North County, you likely know about the risks of alcohol-impaired driving. We often hear about DUI laws in California and the serious consequences of driving under the influence of alcohol. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highlights how an average of 28 people sustain fatal injuries in car accidents each day caused by drunk drivers (or, to put that number another way, one person dies every 51 minutes because a driver decided to drink and drive).

What about drugged driving? How does smoking or otherwise consuming marijuana affect a person’s ability to drive safely? How often do prescription drugs or illegal substances play a role in serious and fatal car accidents in Encinitas? According to a recent report from the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS), the FDA’s newly finalized study provides guidance on drugged driving.

Drugged Driving Laws in California

Before we discuss the FDA’s guidance on drugged driving, it is important to understand how California law deals with impaired driving, from drunk driving to drugged driving. Under California Vehicle Code Section 23152, in addition to making it illegal for a person to drive with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08% or higher, the law also clarifies that it is “unlawful for a person who is addicted to the use of any drug to drive a vehicle.” In addition, the law makes it unlawful “for a person who is under the influence of any drug to drive a vehicle” and “for a person who is under the combined influence of any alcoholic beverage and drug to drive a vehicle.”

The law clearly lays out how a person’s BAC can be a firm indicator of unlawful driving while impaired by alcohol. However, the statute is not quite as clear when it comes to determining whether a person is under the influence of a drug, particularly in situations in which a person might indeed be impaired by drug use, but the drug might be a legally prescribed one or an otherwise legal substance.

FDA Guidance on Drugged Driving

While the use of illegal substances can result in drugged driving, the FDA guidance is concerned primarily with impaired driving caused by lawful drugs. How does the FDA recommend determining whether drugged driving has occurred? The FDA recommends focusing on “five broad functional domains important to driving ability” when considering a person’s level of impairment, including the following:

• Driver’s level of alertness, arousal, and wakefulness;
• Driver’s attention and processing speed;
• Reaction time and psychomotor functions of the driver;
• Driver’s sensory-perceptual functioning; and
• Driver’s executive functions.

These factors are primarily designed to determine impairment for psychoactive drugs. The FDA recognizes that drugmakers and law enforcement officials will also need to consider factors that could determine impairment when a person as taken non-psychoactive drugs. In the end, it is important to consider the specific effects of drugs, and to take them on a case-by-case basis in assessing how they might affect a driver’s level of impairment.

Do you have questions about filing a drugged driving claim? An Escondido car accident lawyer can assist with your case. Contact the Walton Law Firm today to speak with a personal injury attorney.

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(image courtesy of Kalu Ci)

There is a new impaired-driving law that will take effect in San Diego in 2019, but right now, the law is already in force in certain counties in California, according to a report from AutoConnectedCar.com. Late last year, California Governor Brown signed SB 1046 into law, a piece of legislation that “establishes a statewide ignition interlock device (IID) program to prevent drunk drivers from re-offending.”

Background Information: SB 1046 and the Ignition Interlock Device Program

Given that impaired driving is a major cause of car accidents in California, it is important to take steps to prevent these crashes from occurring in the first place. Changes to California’s law when it comes to ignition interlock devices could be one such significant step in prevent crashes caused by alcohol-impaired driving. According to David Kelly, the Executive Director of the Coalition of Ignition Interlock Manufacturers (CIIM), “this new law is a positive step forward to help slow the revolving door of unlicensed, uninsured drunk drivers who continue driving at the public’s peril.”

As we mentioned, the law is already in effect in a number of California counties. The IID program began as a pilot program in Alameda County, Los Angeles County, Sacramento County, and Tulare County. When Governor Brown signed the legislation, he extended the program in those counties until January 1, 2019, at which time it will take effect in all counties in the state.

What, precisely, will the new law do? It will help to limit the number of drunk drivers on the road who have been arrested previously for drunk driving by “encouraging DUI offenders to participate in a supervised IID program immediately after their driver’s license is suspended.” That program gives the DUI offender “unrestricted driving privileges,” thereby allowing the offender to get to work or to run necessary errands, while also requiring the offender to use the IID in order to start the car. In other words, there are benefits to the offender and to the public: No DUI offender will be able to get behind the wheel of his or her car without proving that there is no alcohol in his or her system.

Get the Facts: DUIs in California

According to the report, anywhere between 50 to 75% of DUI offenders in California drive on suspended licenses. In other words, those DUI offenders drive illegally, and the fact that their licenses have been suspended does not prevent them from getting behind the wheel. Every year, about 1,000 fatalities result from alcohol-impaired motor vehicle accidents in California alone. That statistic does not account for the additional 20,000 injuries that result from crashes caused by impaired driving.

Can IID programs really make a difference? According to MADD, “ignition interlock devices have stopped more than one million drinking-and-driving attempts since 2010 in the four counties participating in California’s . . . pilot program.” As such, there are hopes that, once the law takes effect in all California counties in 2019, we will see a reduction in the number of motor vehicle accidents caused by drunk driving.

In the meantime, if you or someone you love sustained injuries in a motor vehicle collision in Southern California, a San Diego car accident attorney can discuss your options with you. Contact the Walton Law Firm for more information.

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(image courtesy of Rsheram)

According to a recent report from NPR, car accidents are the leading cause of death for American teenagers, and in a surprisingly high number of those crashes, alcohol plays a role. About 25% of all teenage traffic collisions involve alcohol. In states where there are substantial restrictions on alcohol usage and serious repercussions for impaired driving, the rate of teenage auto accident fatalities tends to be lower, according to a recent study reported by NPR. What do the findings of this new study tell us? California and states across the country should put policies into place that help to curb teens’ purchase and use of alcohol, and to take steps to make the consequences of drinking and driving more severe.

Regulations on Alcohol Sales for the General Population When we talk about regulations aimed at limiting the purchase of alcohol and its consumption by underage teen drivers, what kinds of regulations are we thinking about in practice? According to the NPR report, there are a number of regulations that can accomplish these goals with relative ease, and all of them target the general population. In other words, policies aimed strictly at teens do not tend to have the results we want. Rather, it is important to consider regulations that would limit alcohol purchases for everyone, including San Diego residents who can legally purchase it. Examples of these policies include but are not limited to:

• Limiting the total hours in a day or week that stores can sell alcohol;
• 
  Restricting the “density of alcohol outlets in a particular area”; and
• 
  Increasing the taxes on sales of alcohol.

Can pricing practices and the potential increase of alcohol tax actually prevent teens from drinking? According to Scott Hadland, the lead author of the study who also is a physician of adolescent medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, “younger people are very sensitive to the price of alcohol.” Indeed, Hadland went on to explain that when it comes to teens and alcohol, “they are unable to consume it to the same extent because it becomes very expensive.”

Policies Aimed at Teens Who Drink and Drive While regulations that impact the general population tend to be among the most effective at limiting alcohol-related teenage car accidents, there are also some policies aimed at teens that can be effective. For instance, the NPR report cites two specific policies:

• Those holding parents accountable for teenage drinking on their properties; and
• 
  Graduated driver’s license (GDL) programs.

In case you do not know about graduating driver’s license programs, they “restrict new drivers until they reach a certain and experience level.” The restrictions imposed by GDL programs can vary, including restrictions on:

• Cell phone use in the car;
• 
  Nighttime driver; and
• 
  Number of passengers permitted in the vehicle.

Contact a San Diego Car Accident Lawyer If you or someone you love recent suffered serious or fatal injuries in a car crash involving an impaired driver, and experienced San Diego auto accident lawyer can assist with your case. Contact the Walton Law Firm to learn more about filing a claim for compensation.

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