DUI Charges in Salisbury

Driving under the influence in Salisbury, as a Salisbury DUI lawyer can tell you, means that the person is operating a vehicle at the same time that their normal condition is substantially impaired because of either alcohol or drugs.

Now if someone is pulled over and suspected of DUI, the law does not require that the person take a breath test. However if the person does take a breath test and their breath test result is a 0.08 or greater, then that one piece of evidence can be used against them after trial.

That piece of evidence can be introduced and the judge can basically presume that the person must have been DUI, must have been driving under the influence because their breath test results was 0.08 or greater.

You Don’t Need to Blow a 0.08 To Get Charged?

The police officer does not need a breath test result in order to charge a driver. The officer needs to be able to establish probable cause to believe that the person’s normal coordination is substantially impaired and that it is alcohol that is causing the impairment.

If the officer can articulate facts to support that then they can charge the driver with a DUI regardless of whether or not they have gotten the driver to take a breath test. They’re going to do that by paying attention to all other factors and things that they can observe about the driver that they could testify to in order to get the person charged.

Facing a DUI in Salisbury

One characteristic of Salisbury that comes into play with DUIs is that unlike some of the bigger metropolitan areas, Salisbury does not really have much public transportation. Only recently has there been an effort to have a trolley system that was put in place and runs on the weekends. This at least allows people to use that public transportation on Friday and Saturday evenings to go to local restaurants and bars.
Additionally, Salisbury is the home of Salisbury University and so, at least from the end of August until the middle of May, there is a big uptick in population right around the Salisbury university campus. A lot of those university students, especially upper classmen, will live off campus.

DUI Enforcement in Salisbury

The DUI enforcement is significantly increased over the weekend and it’s typical for law enforcement to specifically be patrolling in the areas of Salisbury University where the bulk of off campus housing is. When you take into consideration that there is a population that is more likely to be out at bars and restaurants and drinking, and you combine that with the fact that there’s very little public transportation, officers are more prone to make traffic stops looking for DUIs.

Many of these people are very responsible and there certainly is an emphasis placed on having a designated driver and making sure that that means that person is not consuming any alcohol.
That makes Salisbury a little bit different from at least the other areas here in Wicomico County and certainly law enforcement is paying attention to where the Salisbury University students live. Law enforcement officers are going to patrol right in the area of the bars and restaurants and they will be paying attention when there are places closing at two in the morning. It is not unusual to see police cars parked directly across the street from those establishments.