Blood Alcohol Content

Question: What’s the B.A.C. limit in Texas?

Answer:

In Texas, a .08 is kind of a threshold for blood alcohol content. A lot of people over the years have come in and said, “I took the breath test and my breath test result was a .08, I guess I’m guilty.” Well, the fact is, you’re not. What happens with that breath test is that is the result when you took the test. The law is, what is your result when you were driving? Very often, the breath test occurred an hour after you were driving. In probably most cases, people’s blood-alcohol level is going up during that period from the stop to when they took the test. If your blood level is going up after you’re driving, then when you’re driving it was lower. In fact, most experts will say that your blood-alcohol level can vary by.03, within an hour. If someone blew a .09, well, it’s obvious that they could’ve been under the legal limit when they were driving. A .08 doesn’t mean you’re automatically intoxicated, and doesn’t mean you’ll automatically be found guilty.

There is a second prong to DWI. The second prong is that they can also prove you were intoxicated by loss of normal, mental or physical factors. What ends up happening is there’s a video in most cases of somebody there at the scene, or of the defendant, and if you look good on the video, it’s a real strong argument that at the time you were driving, you were under the legal limit. We have to look at all the facts to see if the argument works, that when you were driving you were under the legal limit.