Nassau-Suffolk, NY DUI/DWI Blog

After the exciting NFL conference championship games, the field has been set for Super Bowl XLVI, which takes place on Sunday, February 5^th in Indianapolis. Excited football fans already know that the New York Giants will face the New England Patriots to determine the champions of the 2011 NFL season.

Giants' fans are undoubtedly hoping for a repeat of the 2008 Super Bowl, in which the team defeated the previously unbeaten Patriots. As family and friends gather together to watch the game (and, of course, the commercials), they need to keep in mind that law enforcement will be out in full force on Super Bowl Sunday to keep drunk drivers off the roads.

A New York husband and wife were both arrested for DWI in early December when they switched places following a drunk driving accident. The couple had three children in the car with them. They are both facing New York felony DWI charges.

According to police, the husband was driving on Transit Road in Clarence, New York when he rear-ended another vehicle. He pulled into a parking lot and before police arrived, witnesses observed his wife get into the driver's seat to make it look like he was operating the vehicle.

The husband later admitted that he switched places to avoid being charged with DWI. The man had previously been convicted of DWI in 2003. Because of the prior conviction, his drunk driving charge was upgraded to a felony.

The New York state inspector general released a scathing review of the Nassau crime lab early this month, nine months after the lab was shut down because of concerns over repeated and widespread forensic errors.

The report has Long Island criminal defense lawyers raising questions about the validity of Nassau county drug convictions. Some are pursuing lawsuits after retesting of the lab's drug chemistry results revealed flaws in more than 10 percent of samples.

For the most part, the efforts to curb drunk driving involve ever increasing penalties, enhanced penalties when someone is injured in an accident, jail time and the lowering of the threshold of what constitutes drunk driving. However, a new program being used to fight drunk driving isn't focused on penalties, but rather the possible consequences of drunk driving.

New York City boroughs Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island have begun requiring first-time drunk drivers to attend a new educational program. The "Victim Impact Panel" program created by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is designed to educate drivers of the potential consequences of drinking and driving.

Spurred on by the national Highway Traffic Safety Administration's slogan "Over the limit, under arrest," police officers across New York participated in a nation-wide two week campaign focusing on raising awareness of drunk driving and reducing the number of drunk drivers on the roads. New York police arrested 67 drivers on suspicion of driving while intoxicated (DWI) during the two-week period.

In an attempt to harness the power of social media, a newly created unit of the New York Police Department (NYPD) will scour the worlds of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social websites for criminals, criminal acts and potentially dangerous situations.

Whether it is to announce plans for a large party, talk about a new piece of clothing or to brag about recent criminal activity, New York's youth take to the Internet to talk or post about almost anything. And, it is this openness and willingness to occasionally over-share information, specifically about illegal activity, that the NYPD's new unit plans to tap into.

According to a study conducted at Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and published in the July 2011 issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, one in four drivers who perished in auto accidents in the U.S. from 1998-2009 tested positive for illegal drugs.

The study examined data from auto accidents in the 20 states that test drivers involved in accidents for drugs, giving the researches data from 44,000 accidents. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study revealed that 14 percent of drivers randomly stopped by police tested positive for drugs, meaning that the presence of drugs in the systems of drivers involved in fatal accidents was twice as high as in the general population of drivers.

Cell phones are constantly evolving, leaving many teenagers scrambling to buy the newest and latest phone. Teens across the country have unfortunately been engaging in behavior that could have severe consequences: cyberbullying and sexting - the act of sending provocative pictures of themselves or classmates via cell phone, email or social networking sites.

Parents, school administrators, and law enforcement personnel are at a loss of how to deal with youthful offenders who engage in these activities; some prosecutors are left with charging the teens under existing child pornography laws - meaning that the teen is then left with a criminal record and may have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his or her life.

The end of the school year, proms and graduation parties often bring a rise in high-profile accidents involving young drivers. It's also an annual opportunity to inform young drivers about their rights and responsibilities under the law.

High schools around the state bring in presenters such as the New York State Police to show students how drinking can affect their driving skills and use vehicle rollover simulators to display the dangers of accidents. New York laws back up these warnings with a zero tolerance law for underage DWI.

"When it comes to drunk driving, there should not be an app for that," says Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York). Schumer, along with three other senators, recently spoke out against smartphone applications by various manufacturers that alert drivers to up-coming sobriety checkpoints, roving sobriety patrols, speed traps and other measures that law enforcement officials take to apprehend drunk drivers and reckless drivers.

Research in Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of the Blackberry smartphone, has already pulled one of its sobriety checkpoint applications from its online marketplace. The senators had requested that RIM, Apple and Google all remove the sobriety checkpoint alert apps and other similar applications from their online stores because the applications posed a risk to public safety.