Urine tests are no longer required when the police believe that a person is driving under the influence of alcohol and can not safely operate a motor vehicle for those of us old enough to have practiced back when these tests were required, I can remember some of the controversies surrounding urine tests and a client's ability to give urine at the time of their arrest.
Today, the police are not required to use urine tests related to alcohol-related DUIs in Los Angeles because the accuracy of these tests in detecting alcohol in the system is questionable. The two main recognized tests for alcohol detection are the blood and breath tests.
Law enforcement must give one of these tests if they suspect a person is under the influence of alcohol. The most accurate of these two tests is the blood test, but both are subject to attack under the right circumstances.
However, Urine tests can be utilized to test whether a person has some drug in their system and can not safely operate a motor vehicle. The police will also call in a drug recognition expert to perform several tests designed to determine if a person is under the influence of a drug that affects their ability to operate a motor vehicle safely.
The critical thing that they have to prove is that the person was under the influence of the drug at the time of the subject driving. This becomes difficult to prove because it is hard to determine when the person ingested the drug and how potent it was at the time of driving.
Other DUI Tests to Evaluate Drunk Driving
In addition to the urine test itself, the authorities will evaluate how the person was driving (were they swerving or driving recklessly), how their speech was (were they slurring their words or talking usually), how their balance was when they performed the field sobriety tests (did they sway or stagger or could they walk normally), whether they were cooperative with the police when they were pulled over and a whole host of other facts including their performance on all of the field sobriety tests.
If you have been arrested for a DUI in Los Angeles, I encourage you to come and go over the circumstances of your particular case. It isn't easy to address every possible possibility of a DUI case on this website. But once you are in front of me, I can gather the information related to you and give you a feel for what you are facing.
It is my experience that once a person knows what they are up against and what they can do to help, a sense of calm and peace comes over them, and they realize that the DUI is not the end of the world and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
