By DUI Lawyer Anthony A. Arzili

1. Obviously, the best tip is to never put your self in a situation where you are likely to drink and drive.
   1. If you are going to drink, choose a designated driver.
   2. If you realize you had too much to drink, get a cab or have someone pick you up.
2. If you decide to drive and realize you are impaired, pull over and park in a safe and legal area.  Take your keys out of the ignition.  You can still be charged with a DUI even if your vehicle is stopped.  If your vehicle is blocking a roadway and indications were that you had been driving (keys in the ignition, hood warm to the touch) you will be charged with a DUI, so make sure to park in a safe place and take the keys out of the ignition.
3. Don’t attract attention to your vehicle.  In my experience, some DUI drivers are stopped for reasons most people wouldn’t expect.  Forgetting to turn on your headlights, playing your music too loud, tinted windows, expired tags are just some of the silly reasons that people are pulled over for DUI that have little to do with being impaired.
4. If the police car pulls you over, stop in a safe and well-lit area.  How you respond to police pulling you over is just one of the tests in whether you are impaired or not.  If you take too long to pull over or pull over quickly on the side of the freeway, the officer is going to take this into account in gauging whether you are DUI or not.
5. Be Polite.  If someone gave you a hard time at your job, you’d probably make their life more difficult.  Police Officers are no different.  While being courteous will not get you out of a DUI, it will make the officers hopefully treat you with the same respect.  The arresting officer has to document everything you do and your demeanor on a police report that will be vital to your criminal and DMV cases, so how he depicts you in that report is very important.
6. Don’t be a Chatty Cathy.  You don’t have to answer any of the preliminary questions, i.e. what you drank, how much you drank and where you drank.  If you feel that you are impaired, your answers will only convict you further.  Respectfully advise the officer that you’d rather not answer any questions. In many DUI cases, the driver’s own words are the strongest evidence against them.
7. Refuse to do the preliminary field sobriety tests.  The tests that are done at the traffic stop are not mandatory.   Again, only do this if you feel impaired.  If you are already impaired, the result of these field tests are used to substantiate the DUI charges against you, so don’t give them the rope to hang you with.  Furthermore, the results of your Field Sobriety Tests are purely at the discretion of the officer.
8. Choose the Breath Test at the Station.  Once you are placed under arrest for DUI, you will be provided with the option of a blood test or a breath test.  The blood test is considered the more accurate of the two tests.  The breath test on the other hand provides more avenues for mistake.  Hence, choosing the breath test provides our specialized DUI attorneys to attack the results in many different ways.
9. Trust your license to a specialist.  You have 10 days from the date of your arrest to request a hearing to save your license.  If you do not request a hearing, your license will automatically go into suspension.  Don’t think that you can go in to the DMV hearing yourself and beg and plead to keep your license.  The hearing officer will tell you that the hearing deals only with the technicalities of your DUI and has nothing to do with your personal hardship.  DUI Attorneys Anthony Arzili and associates have handled hundreds of DUI DMV hearings and know what the issues are and how to win.
10. Don’t throw yourself at the “mercy of the court.”  One of the common misfortunes that I see as a DUI lawyer in court is the poor souls who march in and attempt to resolve their own DUI case.  The common misconception is that the Judge or the Prosecutor will feel sorry for them and give them a break.  Reality is not that nice.  What happens is they are given a choice to take a deal or to go to trial.  There is no negotiation or any discussion about what this will do to their lives and their jobs.  Judges and Prosecutors do not negotiate with non-represented persons.   Hand your case over to an experienced attorney who has handled hundreds of cases just like yours, who knows the prosecutor of your case by his first name and who knows what to do and how to do it.  Call us for a free consultation at 562-907-4448.