Why Were You Pulled Over?
The question of why you were pulled over can be an important one in your DUI incident. Many people are arrested and charged with driving under the influence without a law enforcement official ever stating a reason for pulling them over. These cases represent unlawful police stops, which can form the grounds for an effective DUI defense.
Illinois law enforcement officers must articulate a reason upon stopping you in your vehicle. Basically, a police officer must have seen you break a law or show a specific sign of impaired driving in order to have probable cause for a DUI stop.
If a police stop wasn’t lawful, an attorney may be able to utilize it as grounds to have drunk driving charges against you dropped.
Fighting A DUI Due To An Unlawful Police Stop
With the exception of DUI checkpoints, which are considered legal in the state of Illinois, a police officer cannot pull you over for no reason to determine whether you are intoxicated. Instead, this official must have some observable reason for making a stop.
Generally, police have the right to stop you for the following offenses:
- Speeding
- Careless driving
- Failure to yield at a stop sign or traffic light
- Driving too fast in a school zone
- Swerving within a lane or across lanes of traffic
- Driving too slowly
- Weaving in and out of traffic
- Hitting or driving over a curb
Clear violations of law or dangerous behavior may be enough of a reason to pull over a motorist, but the law also states that an officer must articulate this reason in a clear way to you. If he or she fails to properly note the reason for a stop, either at the time of a stop or in a police report detailing a DUI arrest, the police stop is unlawful you may seek to have the charges against you dropped.
