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A San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving conviction or record is considered a criminal offense and as such is a part of your criminal history. A San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving under California Vehicle Code Section 23152 is considered a misdemeanor offense whereas felony San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving offenses under California Vehicle Code Section 23153 involve property damage, injury/death, and/or multiple offenses.

Check with a San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving attorney to verify. A San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving misdemeanor conviction is eligible for expungement under California Penal Code Section 1203.4.

The benefits of clearing your San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving record can mean many things, including expanded employment opportunities by being able to answer “no” on job applications if and when the employer or application asks if you’ve ever been convicted of a criminal offense.

By clearing the record you’ll be eligible for jobs that would otherwise exclude you based solely on the San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving record as well as professional licenses and other civic liberties.

San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving Expungement

After a San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving conviction, one of the best remedies to seek is what’s known as a 1203.4 expungement which is a legal practice that can clear your San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving record. The San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving expungement gets the initial San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving charges dismissed and the case dropped under specific terms described in the San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving expungement order. The San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving expungement can be handled by a San Diego California DUI Lawyer. Here’s how the San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving charges can be dropped.

If you operate a vehicle in California, police officers can and will pull a person over anytime they are suspected of driving while intoxicated. This article briefly outlines the type of field and chemical tests that are administered by officers to determine if a person has indeed been drinking and driving.

Field Sobriety Tests

Police officers call Field Sobriety Tests “FSTs” for short. These tests consist of several exercises that measure a person’s coordination, balance and divided attention. These tests consist of exercises such as “walk the line”, saying the alphabet, one-leg-stand, walk-and-turn, horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) which is following an object with your eyes from side to side, etc.

Blood Alcohol Tests

In DUI cases, you’ll often hear the term “B.A.C.”, which stands for “Blood Alcohol Content”. In the state of California, you can be arrested and charged with drunk driving if your B.A.C. is over 0.08%. To find out a person’s blood alcohol content, police officers use breath analyzing machines. However, you have the option of asking for a second blood test if you want a second opinion. This second test is administered by an independent source and you have to pay for it. Police officers do not have sufficient enough training to do this type of blood test. A hospital staff will have to do the test.

Breath tests only measure alcohol and have often found to be inaccurate by DUI defense lawyers. There are many factors that can affect the result of a breath test including a person’s temperature, breath patterns, and other substances in your breath. There are several types of breath analyzing machines on the market and they must be taken care of properly to be effective. Sometimes these breath analyzing machines are not highly maintained which could bring about an incorrect B.A.C. reading.

An El Cajon, California man will stand trial in a drunk driving accident case that occurred in July of this year. 35-year-old Shannon Shimp is charged with two counts each of murder, as well as gross vehicular manslaughter in the deaths of Ian Kinney and Joseph Warren Edwards.

The accident took place on Highway 78 on July 22nd. 19-year-old Tessa Medearis was in a Lexus with her boyfriend, 19-year-old Ian Kinney. A pickup driven by Shimp attempting to pass three vehicles skidded out of control, and into the westbound lanes. It crashed into the Lexus, which was also westbound, ending up on top of the car. Ian was killed instantly. Also killed was Shimp’s passenger, 58-year-old Joseph Warren Edwards. Both men died at the scene. Ian left behind his parents, while Edwards is survived by his wife.

Tessa suffered moderate injuries, and had to be extricated from the wreckage. After the accident, Shimp, who had suffered injuries in the car accident, was taken to the hospital for treatment of his injuries, and then arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. He was found to have been driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.19 when tests were conducted two hours after the car accident.

On Wednesday, Tessa appeared in court to testify about the car accident that killed her boyfriend. The Superior Court Judge ruled that there were grounds for a trial. There will be a hearing on December 3rd to decide on a date for the trial.

For the two families that lost the most in this tragedy, it seems like justice gets nearer every day. They have had to face the pain of losing their loved ones though no fault of their own.

California has a multi-pronged approach to dealing with the DUI menace. Not only does it have some of the most severe drunk driving laws in the country, but it has also had a significant amount of success in bringing down accident rates in the state, through better awareness programs for motorists, stronger checks and monitoring of drivers, as well as graduated licensing programs for teens that encourage them to be fully educated before they are allowed to drive on their own. The stringency of these laws has led to criticism from groups who believe that license suspensions and the focus on passing breath tests, are unfair. When we continue to have drivers like Shimp who think nothing of tanking up with alcohol that’s more than twice over the legal limit, it’s clear that these criticisms are baseless.

California DUI attorney Eugene Ellis is known for fighting DUI cases throughout California.www.sandiegoduiattorneys.net

A Yuba City, California driver can expect to be charged in connection with a drunk driving accident in which two of his close friends were killed.

The accident that occurred on Highway 99 near Live Oak, California on November 16th, is just one more reminder of the needless risks we take with the lives of those closest to us when we drink and drive. The driver in this car crash, 20-year-old Abdul Umar Hay, was returning from an all-night party with his friend Rafael Courtland Walker and Matthew Stephen Fair. Initial reports say that Hay must have dozed off at the wheel, causing the car to zip though a stop sign. A short while later, it was broadsided by a Ford Explorer. The impact of the crash caused Hay’s car to be pushed over into a nearby orchard. Both Walker and Fair were declared dead at the scene of the car accident. Both were 20-years-old.

Hay was the only survivor, and was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. He can now expect to be charged with felony vehicular manslaughter and felony driving under the influence causing injury. He doesn’t have a previous criminal record, but could be looking at a minimum of 6 months in prison, if found guilty.

The reactions of Walker’s and Fair’s parents were a study in contrast. Fair’s father remains indignant at the thought of a six-month sentence for the man he holds responsible for killing his son, while Walker’s mother, who is a member of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), insists that prison time is not an appropriate sentence. Last Friday, the families of the two victims took part in a memorial service that celebrated their lives.

You have to understand Richard Fair’s anger. Matthew was his only son and whether the two victims in the car had also consumed alcohol or not, the fact is that only Hay was in charge of driving them home. At 20, Hay is looking at an irredeemable stain on his record. This young man has a lifetime ahead of him, and has voluntarily cast a pall over his ambitions and his future through his negligent actions. Hay will have to deal with a lifetime of guilt for the deaths of his two friends.

Underage drinking continues to be a problem, and is cited as a factor in too many California drunk driving accidents for us to take any debate on lowering the drinking age seriously, as proposed by many college deans. What’s needed to tackle the problem is not lowering the drinking age, and giving every 18-year-old in California carte blanche with alcohol, but a joint effort by parents, college administrators as well as the community. In Yuba City, for instance, many parents including Walker’s mother, Jean Hammonds, believes that the area just doesn’t offer enough recreation opportunities for the young to let off steam. The result is underage drinking binges like the one that took place here, and the tragic drunk driving accidents that result from these.

As an update to a story we carried last month in our California drunk driving accident lawyers blog, a former Stockton police trainee has been arraigned in an accident case that killed one of his passengers.

According to the Modesto Bee, 27-year-old Ryan Honnette has been arraigned on charges including driving with a blood alcohol percentage of 0.08 percent or more, driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury, and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. The accident that he has been charged in relation to took place on October 18th. Honnette was driving a Ford Excursion with four passengers inside. As he approached the Highway 132-Lake Junction, Honnette seems to have lost control of the vehicle. He tried to get the vehicle back on track, and over-corrected. The SUV rolled over. 25-year-old Matthew Miller, who was sitting in the back seat, was thrown out of the SUV. He suffered severe injuries, and was taken to the hospital where he died a while later. The other passengers in the car escaped with minor injuries. Honnette walked away without any injuries.

Honnette was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. His blood alcohol level was apparently 0.15 percent. He was just a few months away from finishing his police officer training, and was placed on paid leave as a result of the drunk driving accident. He is currently looking at a sentence of more than 10 years, if convicted.

This is a classic example of a man throwing his life and career away in one instant of lunacy. You would expect Honnette to be more aware of the dangers of drunk driving. As a police officer in training, he likely had access to DUI offenders who were looking at punishments ranging from license suspension to prison time. Yet, he chose to get behind the wheel too drunk to drive anyway. His blood alcohol levels were almost twice the legal limit, which makes you wonder what exactly he took home from his police training program.

This sort of behavior would be intolerable from an average motorist – from a man of the law, it’s completely unacceptable. Honnette deserves the strictest punishment he can get for his negligent behavior.

A San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving conviction or record is considered a criminal offense and as such is a part of your criminal history. A San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving under California Vehicle Code Section 23152 is considered a misdemeanor offense whereas felony San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving offenses under California Vehicle Code Section 23153 involve property damage, injury/death, and/or multiple offenses.

Check with a San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving attorney to verify. A San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving misdemeanor conviction is eligible for expungement under California Penal Code Section 1203.4.

The benefits of clearing your San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving record can mean many things, including expanded employment opportunities by being able to answer “no” on job applications if and when the employer or application asks if you’ve ever been convicted of a criminal offense.

By clearing the record you’ll be eligible for jobs that would otherwise exclude you based solely on the San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving record as well as professional licenses and other civic liberties.

San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving Expungement

After a San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving conviction, one of the best remedies to seek is what’s known as a 1203.4 expungement which is a legal practice that can clear your San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving record. The San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving expungement gets the initial San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving charges dismissed and the case dropped under specific terms described in the San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving expungement order. The San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving expungement can be handled by a San Diego California DUI Lawyer. Here’s how the San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving charges can be dropped.

According information given by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, as of January 1, 2007, if you request an out-of-house / public driving record printout, any DUI offense on your record will appear for 10 years from the violation date.

Under this new law, DUI’s that had previously been taken off a person’s driving record have now been put back on. For example if you had a DUI back in 1998 and had it removed from your record 2005, and had since received a good driver discount, under the new law, the DUI would be back on your driving history and you may not qualify for a good driver discount again until 2008.

Many insurance companies check your motor vehicle record only once every three years or when you’re applying for a new policy. Sometimes, accidents, tickets, and drunk-driving convictions can escape your insurer’s attention or don’t end up on your motor vehicle record. However, if your insurer does find out about a driving under the influence (DUI) conviction, you’re likely to feel the pinch of higher rates and possibly policy cancellation or non-renewal. Shopping around will definitely yield the lowest rate, as they vary greatly.

There are two ways insurance companies generally deal with customers convicted of DUI. First, your insurer will likely raise your car insurance premiums and label you a high-risk driver if it finds out you’ve been convicted of DUI.

Second, your auto insurer may cancel your insurance mid-term or terminate the policy at the end of the term because of your DUI conviction, especially if you are currently in a preferred class. Your company will send you a notice stating why you’ve been canceled, and then you’ll have to find another insurer while having a cancellation on your claims history and a DUI on your driving record.

Most state laws require DUI convicts to get an SR-22 from their insurers, so you can’t hide. Your insurance company may have to provide the DMV with an SR-22 form, which removes your license suspension by providing the state with proof of your insurance. An SR-22 also means your insurance company is required to notify the DMV if it cancels your auto insurance for any reason. In this case, you’ll likely have to file proof of insurance for three — sometimes five — years with your state’s department of motor vehicles. Some insurance companies don’t offer SR-22 policies, so you may also be non-renewed or canceled because your company can no longer provide what you need.

Certain states don’t allow insurance companies to drop you in the middle of the policy term even for a DUI, so make sure There are two ways insurance companies generally deal with customers convicted of DUI. First, your insurer will likely raise your car insurance premiums and label you a high-risk driver if it finds out you’ve been convicted of DUI.

Second, your auto insurer may cancel your insurance mid-term or terminate the policy at the end of the term because of your DUI conviction, especially if you are currently in a preferred class. Your company will send you a notice stating why you’ve been canceled, and then you’ll have to find another insurer while having a cancellation on your claims history and a DUI on your driving record.

Most state laws require DUI convicts to get an SR-22 from their insurers, so you can’t hide. Your insurance company may have to provide the DMV with an SR-22 form, which removes your license suspension by providing the state with proof of your insurance. An SR-22 also means your insurance company is required to notify the DMV if it cancels your auto insurance for any reason. In this case, you’ll likely have to file proof of insurance for three — sometimes five — years with your state’s department of motor vehicles. Some insurance companies don’t offer SR-22 policies, so you may also be non-renewed or canceled because your company can no longer provide what you need.

Certain states don’t allow insurance companies to drop you in the middle of the policy term even for a DUI, so make you know the laws in your state.

A San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving conviction or record is considered a criminal offense and as such is a part of your criminal history. A San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving under California Vehicle Code Section 23152 is considered a misdemeanor offense whereas felony San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving offenses under California Vehicle Code Section 23153 involve property damage, injury/death, and/or multiple offenses.

Check with a San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving attorney to verify. A San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving misdemeanor conviction is eligible for expungement under California Penal Code Section 1203.4.

The benefits of clearing your San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving record can mean many things, including expanded employment opportunities by being able to answer “no” on job applications if and when the employer or application asks if you’ve ever been convicted of a criminal offense.

By clearing the record you’ll be eligible for jobs that would otherwise exclude you based solely on the San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving record as well as professional licenses and other civic liberties.

San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving Expungement

After a San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving conviction, one of the best remedies to seek is what’s known as a 1203.4 expungement which is a legal practice that can clear your San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving record. The San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving expungement gets the initial San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving charges dismissed and the case dropped under specific terms described in the San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving expungement order. The San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving expungement can be handled by a San Diego California DUI Lawyer. Here’s how the San Diego California DUI / Drunk Driving charges can be dropped.

When there are drunk driving accidents, no matter what happened, who was at fault, or what the consequences are, there are going to be a lot of things going through your mind. Whether you were the person who was driving and got into an accident while drunk, or you were the victim of someone else who was driving drunk, California drunk driving accidents can be stressful and also lead to a lot of problems for the driver and the other party. Therefore, if you have been involved in a California drunk driving accident, there are a few things that you can do to make sure that you are treated fairly and that all parties are held responsible.

The very first thing that needs to be done when it comes to California drunk driving accidents is medical attention. If you have been injured, or another party has been, no matter who was at fault, those injuries need to be taken care of promptly. There are a couple types of injuries, and each are important. First of all, there are emergency injuries, or injuries that are life threatening and need to be taken care of as soon as possible. It is going to be very important for you to make sure that you get to a hospital right away, and deal with any injuries that you might have. Next, you will want to visit your doctor again, whether or not you have been to the emergency room, to make sure that you get fully checked out and that any problems that have occurred because of the drunk driving accident are taken care of and documented. You might also want to visit a counselor, or deal with any other mental or physical problems that come up due to the accident.

After the medical problems have been taken care of, there are still going to be things that you need to deal with from your accident. These are all going to be things that you want to get taken care of as soon as possible. The legal ramifications of this type of accident are going to be very high, so you want to be sure that whether you were the driver or the victim, you have contacted legal representation that can help you.

There are many reasons that you need to contact a California Drunk Driving Accident attorney or lawyer when you have been the victim of a drunk driving accident causing a personal injury in California, or when you have been the person who has caused California drunk driving accidents. First of all, drunk driving is something that is illegal, so if you were the one driving, you are going to have your own legal ramifications. If you were not driving, it means that someone who was doing something illegal caused an accident that you were in. Either way, you are going to need to navigate the legal system, which means that you are going to need to have the aid of a trained lawyer or attorney who can help you through it.

California drunk driving accidents are difficult to deal with, and impossible to handle on your own, no matter what part you played in them. Therefore, after you have sought medical attention, the most important thing for you to do is to find a lawyer who can help you through the legal system, and one that understands what you’ll be up against.

Click these links if you need a Los Angeles California Car Accident Lawyer; Or possibly a San Diego California Car Accident Lawyers & Attorneys.