A 22-year-old UGA student was arrested on Saturday night after being involved in a minor car accident. When police arrived, he was apologizing to the four women from the Redcoat band involved in the accident and saying it was his fault. The officer noted that he was talkative and had slurred speech and was apologizing repeatedly. These factors made the police officer suspect that he was driving while impaired by alcohol. He also thought that the young man had the smell of alcohol on his breath.
Another police officer arrived and the two were asking the young man about his alcohol use that day. The man told the police he had had three alcoholic drinks over several hours before the football game that day, but hadn’t had any after the 4:30 kickoff. He told police he would take a Breathalyzer test to prove he was not drunk. He blew a blood-alcohol level of 0.066, which is below the 0.08 legal blood alcohol limit for driving in Georgia.
The officers also talked with the women involved in the accident, who had the same description of events as the young man. The man had told police that he had been watching his rearview mirror because people were following his car and didn’t see in time that the car in front of his had stopped.
Police made him take field sobriety tests and took their notes that he was shuffling his feet, and had glassy eyes, slurred speech and the odor of alcohol on him and decided to arrest him for DUI alcohol less safe and following too closely. The man probably had good intentions by talking liberally at the scene of the accident, but police officers still arrested him and brought him to the police station.
Source: The Red and Black, “Crime Notebook, Sept. 12,” Adina Solomon, Sept. 12, 2011