Common Vocabulary Related to DUI Law
• Acetone - a chemical formed when the body breaks down fat instead of glucose for energy. Levels rise and acetone “spills” into the urine and is exhaled in the breath producing a “fruity” smell. This can be improperly read as alcohol by the Intoxilyzer.
• Absorption - the taking of alcohol from outside the body into the bloodstream. Peak absorption refers to the highest level of blood alcohol seen before blood alcohol content (BAC) begins to diminish.
• Alcohol: a liquid (C2H2OH) found in intoxicating drinks.
• Alcohol Gaze Nystagmus (AGN) - Gaze nystagmus caused by the effects of alcohol upon the nervous system.
• Alcoholics Anonymous: (AA) An organization for alcoholics-with the intent to cure the addiction.
• Alcohol Detector: Any device designed and used to detect the presence of alcohol.
• Alcoholic: Someone addicted to alcohol.
• Alcoholism: Addiction to alcohol
• Abuse: Improper use of, as in excessive drinking of alcohol.
• Arraignment – This is the initial court proceeding where someone arrested for DUI / DWI, OWI, drunk driving, or any related drinking and driving criminal charge is formally advised of the criminal charges against them. It is at the arraignment that the defendant is given an opportunity to enter a plea.
• Arrest: The taking of someone into police custody.
• BAC: Acronym for Blood Alcohol Concentration used as a means to determine the alcohol level in a drinkers blood system.
• BAL: Acronym for Breath or Blood Alcohol Level.
• Beer: An alcohol drink brewed from malts and hops.
• Bender: A drinking spree.
• Binge Drinking: A heavy drinking session normally associated with alcohol.
• Blood Alcohol Test: A test given to determine if a drinker’s blood alcohol level is within legal limits to drive a vehicle.
• Booze: Slang for alcohol
• Boozer: One who over indulges in alcohol.
• Breath Alcohol Test: A test given to determine if a drinker’s blood alcohol level is within the legal limits by testing lung air samples.
• Breathscan: A scan designed to measure the amount of alcohol in a drinkers system.
• Breathalyzer: A trademark name that has become a generic term for a device that tests a person’s blood alcohol level.
• Burnoff – This refers to the ability of the body to metabolize alcohol, and eliminate it from the system through the functioning of the vital organs. In other words, dissipation of alcohol from a person’s body. The rate of burnoff will vary from person to person, and even be different for the same person depending upon various factors.
• Calibration: Test and adjust the accuracy of a measuring device.
• Caloric Nystagmus - A vestibular system nystagmus caused by differences in temperature between the ears. For example, when one ear is irrigated with warm water and the other is irrigated with cold water.
• Chemical Test - Measures of alcohol concentration in a person’s breath, urine, or blood.
• Cocktail: A drink consisting of a mixture of other drinks, usually alcohol and a soft drink or juice.
• Coin Operated Breath Alcohol Testing: A vending machine installed at facilities serving alcohol drinks to measure a driver’s blood alcohol concentration.
• Delirium Tremens: A symptom of alcohol withdrawal, typically caused by stopping consumption quickly, marked by agitations, tremors, and hallucinations.
• Detoxification (Detox): To rid somebody or yourself of toxic, especially addictive substances.
• DOT (Department of Transportation): Acronym for the agency mandated to maintain and police state highways.
• Driving Under the Influence (DUI): a descriptive statement meaning the driver of a vehicle has been drinking alcohol.
• Drunk: the state of being intoxicated with alcohol (i.e. ethanol) to a sufficient degree to impair mental and motor functioning
• Drunk Driving: The act of operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. Also a general reference to those criminal cases that are called DUI, DWI, OUI, OWI, DUII, DWAI, or other acronyms.
• DUI: Acronym for “Driving Under the Influence.”
• DWI: Acronym for “Driving While Intoxicated.”
• Enabler: One who enables another to do something.
• Enhancements - Factors that can operate to increase the punishment in a drunk driving, DUI, DWI, OUI, OWI, or related driving under the influence case.
• Epileptic Nystagmus - Nystagmus evident during an epileptic seizure.
• Evidentiary: Pertaining to or constituting legal evidence.
• Extrapolation - The method of computing BAC at a given time using the physical characteristics of the drinker, the quantity of alcohol consumed, the period of time over which alcohol is consumed, and when the alcohol was last consumed.
• Field Sobriety Test (FST) - Any number of tests used by law enforcement officers, usually on the roadside, to determine whether a driver is impaired. Most test balance, coordination and the ability of the driver to divide his or her attention among several tasks as once. Other tests, such as the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, are used to measure a subject’s impairment level.
• Fixation - ability of the eye to focus on one point.
• Gaze Nystagmus - Nystagmus that occurs when the eyes gaze or fixate upon an object or image. Usually caused by a disruption of the nervous system.
• Hangover: The unpleasant after effects of drinking too much alcohol.
• Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) - Gaze nystagmus that occurs when the eyes gaze or move to the side along a horizontal plane.
• Ignition Interlock: Device integrated into a vehicle’s ignition system that prevents operation if the driver’s blood alcohol level is above legal limits.
• Inebriate: To make drunk.
• Intoxicated: A state of being drunk.
• Jerk Nystagmus - Nystagmus where the eye drifts slowly away from a point of focus and then quickly corrects itself with a saccadic movement back to the point of focus.
• Libation: An alcoholic drink.
• Liquor: An alcoholic beverage produced by distillation instead of fermentation.
• MADD: Acronym for “Mothers Against Drunk Drivers”
• Motions - Asking the court to do something. Drunk driving defense lawyers generally file many motions with the court in defending a driver accused of DUI, DWI, OUI, OWI, or a related drunk driving offense. These motions may include discovery motions (to force the prosecutor to turn over evidence), motions to suppress evidence (to prevent evidence from being used against the defendant), motions to dismiss the case, and many others.
• Natural Nystagmus - Nystagmus that occurs without any apparent physiological, vestibular, or neurological disturbance.
• Neurological Nystagmus - Nystagmus caused by some disturbance in the nervous system.
• NHTSA: Acronym for National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
• Nystagmus - An involuntary bouncing or jerking of the eye caused by any number of vestibular, neurological or physiological disturbances.
• Oculomotor - Movement of the eyeball.
• One-Leg-Stand (OLS) test - One of the three tests that make up the standardized field sobriety test battery. This test requires a subject to stand on one leg, look at his or her foot and count out loud to until told to stop. The subject is assessed on the ability to understand and follow instructions as well as the ability to maintain balance for thirty seconds.
• Optokinetic Nystagmus - A nystagmus evident when an object that the eye fixates upon moves quickly out of sight or passes quickly through the field of vision, such as occurs when a subject watches utility poles pass by while in a moving car. Optokinetic nystagmus is also caused by watching alternating moving images, such as black and white spokes on a spinning wheel.
• Oscillate - to move back and forth at a constant rate between two points.
• OUI: Acronym for Operating Under the Influence, the “drunk driving law.” It can be proven in either of two ways: the driver was “operating under the influence of liquor” or the driver was operating with an unlawful body alcohol level.
• OUIL: Acronym for Operating Under the Influence of Liquor. This looks at the quality of the driving. Requires that an operator’s ability to operate a motor vehicle in a normal manner was “substantially lessened” as the result of drinking alcohol.
• PAS test - Preliminary Alcohol Screening test.
• Pathological Disorder - Disruptions of the normal functions of organs of the body due to disease, illness, or damage.
• Pendular Nystagmus - Nystagmus where the eye oscillates or swings equally in two directions.
• Per Se : Another way of referring to Unlawful Body Alcohol Level (UBAL).
• Physiological Nystagmus - A nystagmus that occurs so that light entering the eye will continually fall on non-fatigued cells on the retina. Physiological nystagmus is so slight that it cannot be detected without the aid of instruments and it occurs in everyone.
• Positional Alcohol Nystagmus (PAN) - Positional nystagmus when the foreign fluid is alcohol. PAN I - The alcohol concentration is higher in the blood than in the vestibular system. PAN II - The alcohol concentration is lower in the blood than in the vestibular system.
• Positional Nystagmus - Nystagmus that occurs when a foreign fluid is in unequal concentrations between the blood and the fluid in the semi-circular canals of the vestibular system.
• Post-Rotational Nystagmus - Nystagmus caused by disturbances in the vestibular system fluid when a person spins around. Post-rotational nystagmus lasts for only a few seconds after a person stops spinning.
• Resting Nystagmus - Nystagmus that occurs as the eye are looking straight ahead.
• Retrograde extrapolation - This is the scientific term for the ability to look at someone’s alcohol level at the time of testing, and look backwards to determine what the alcohol level was at the time of driving.
• Rising Alcohol Defense - This defense is based on the idea that alcohol levels change over time, as the body absorbs alcohol, reaches a peak level, and then eliminates alcohol. Breath or blood testing is done after driving (sometimes long after); these test results tell us what the alcohol level is at the time of testing, not at the time of driving. The rising alcohol defense is simply that at the time of driving (the critical time in a drunk driving case), the alcohol level was below the legal limit, even if it continued to rise until the time of testing.
• Rotational Nystagmus - Nystagmus caused by disturbances in the vestibular system fluid when a person spins around. Rotational nystagmus occurs while the person is spinning.
• Saccadic - Movement of the eye from one fixation point to another.
• SADD: Acronym for Students Against Destructive Decisions
• Smooth Pursuit - The eye’s course as it tracks a moving image.
• Sober: Not drunk.
• Sobriety: The state of not being drunk.
• Sobriety Checkpoints - The practice of law enforcement agencies selecting a particular location for a particular time period and systematically stopping vehicles (for example, every fifth car) to investigate drivers for possible DUI / DWI.
• Social Drinker: One who drinks on occasion but not to excess.
• Standardized Field Sobriety Test (SFST) - A group of tests selected as the best field sobriety tests to increase the ability of law enforcement officers to detect driver impairment. The results of this battery, usually administered along the roadside, contribute extensively to a law enforcement officer’s decision to arrest a person for impaired driving.
• Substance abuse: Excessive consumption or misuse of any substance especially drugs or alcohol.
• Tolerance - As it relates to DUI / DWI, the ability of a person to adapt and maintain their behavior to disguise the effects of alcohol consumption.
• UBAL - Acronym for Unlawful Body Alcohol Level. This looks at the amount of alcohol in a person’s breath, blood, or urine.
• OWVI - Acronym for Operating With Visibly Impaired.
• OUID - Acroynm for Operating under the Influence of Drugs.
• Vertical Nystagmus - Nystagmus that occurs when the eyes gaze or move upward along a vertical plane.
• Vestibular System - The system of fluid-filled canals located in the inner ear that assists in balance, coordination and orientation.
• Vestibular System Nystagmus - Nystagmus caused by a disturbance in the vestibular system.
• Walk-and-Turn (WAT) test - One of the three tests that make up the standardized field sobriety battery. This test requires a person to take nine heel to toe steps down a straight line, turn and take nine heel to toe steps back up the line. The subject is assessed on the ability to understand and follow instructions as well as the ability to maintain balance during the instruction stage and walking stage.
• Zero-Tolerance Laws: Laws in affect aimed specifically at young drivers or those involved in alcohol related accidents.
