Not for a Q. No sir, Q they might go all the way back to the womb, and parents, uncles, grandparents, etc. Need to get into Pantex or Hanford? Get coffee and a donut, gonna be a while with an arrest(or two). Don't ask me how I know.
False DUI Arrests and the FAA
- Thread starter Jon Wilder
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Jon Wilder
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Not just for being arrested in general. But for certain offenses, such as driving while license suspended and DUI (DUI/DWI/OUI/OUIL/whatever your state calls it), an additional case is brought against you...an administrative case...by the state driving authority. This case is separate from the criminal case that is also brought against you and is contingent not upon the outcome of the criminal case, but solely contingent upon the arrest.
Even if you beat the criminal case in the courts, the state driving authority suspends your license due to the arrest itself regardless of what the outcome is at the courts.
This would be something that would directly affect BasicMed pilots as well, since they need a valid driver license to fly under BasicMed.
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Jon Wilder
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How about stop assuming I'm saying something I'm not.
People are asking "Has it actually happened?" or "Can you cite anyone who this has actually happened to?" My response is to their attitude. Not whether or not it has actually happened. They're minimizing the impact it has on all of us unless someone can cite a reported case of it happening to one of us (key word...reported...just because an event hasn't surfaced to the public domain doesn't mean it's never happened).
Now...sober DUI has happened to A LOT of people. As there'd be too many video links to post, you can just go on YouTube and search "Sober DUI" (no I'm not asking you to do my homework...I've already done the homework, and I'm explaining how you can find the very same things I found while doing my homework just because there are far too many videos on YouTube pertaining to this subject to link to).
In one of the cases, college kid was pulled over for driving with his high beams on. Cop claimed to smell "an overwhelming amount of alcohol". Knowing he had not drank any alcohol, he was geared up and ready to do a breathalizer. Officer instead wanted him to do FSTs. The guy repeatedly said "C'mon this is ridiculous, just let me blow". Finally they give the breath test...blows all zeros.
Cop then says "Well I smell marijuana". The guy explains that he's on the college football team and they get tested every Friday. The cop says "Well today's Saturday". Guy says "Weed is in your system for 30 days minimum. I'd be off the team next week." They arrest him anyway.
A toxicologist interviews him at the station and determines he's not under the influence of alcohol or drugs and he is released.
He currently has an active lawsuit going, in which the cops tried to claim qualified immunity, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said cops don't get qualified immunity when there is no probable cause.
Yes he's winning. But he shouldn't have to be doing this nonsense in the first place.
Bottom line...we are not immune to this. If it hasn't happened to a pilot yet, it's only a matter of time before it does.
Jon Wilder
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They're not protected by the administrative system. In a DUI case, TWO cases are brought against you. The DA brings a criminal case against you. The state driving authority brings an administrative case against you solely for being arrested for DUI. The outcome of the administrative case is not at all contingent upon the outcome of the criminal case. It is solely contingent upon the arrest. "Were you arrested for DUI?" If the answer is "Yes", they're revoking your license.
This has a direct impact on your medical certificate.
Don't tell me what to do.
Ed Haywood
Final Approach
And there is a separate hearing process where you can contest that suspension, as well as various ways to get it lifted early or invalidated. It's called due process.
All these state laws were established by elected representatives because DUI is such a huge problem. You don't like it, too bad.
Ed Haywood
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Wrong. Your license is suspended for a limited period of time, not revoked. And that suspension can be challenged, shortened, or invalidated.
You are aggressively dishonest in your arguments. Almost like you have a grudge. Got arrested, did you?
Block me. Otherwise stop whining about it.
Lindberg
Final Approach
Again, I ask, which states? Texas will suspend your license for a certain BAC or if you refuse the test. What states suspend your license merely because you were arrested?
Lindberg
Final Approach
You're either aware of probably innocent DUI arrests actually affecting pilots with the FAA or you're not.
No one will argue that innocent people don't get arrested for DWI. Innocent people get arrested for shoplifting and murder and everything in between.
Lindberg
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If you fail or refuse a chemical test.
bonefishpete
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Well Florida has a new law that make refusal a criminal act now!
Florida's
implied consent law (Section 316.1932) states that driving in the state acts as consent to chemical tests (breath, blood, or urine) if lawfully arrested for DUI. As of October 1, 2025, refusing a first-time test is a criminal offense (second-degree misdemeanor) and triggers an automatic 1-year license suspension.
Second refusal is a felony now I believe.
Lindberg
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Again, that's for a refusal. I'm asking about states that suspend your license merely because you were arrested.
Jon Wilder
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California is one such state.
Jon Wilder
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“If lawfully arrested”. This doesn’t count the preliminary breath test (i.e. field breathalyzer). This refers to the chemical test they do at booking.
Lindberg
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According to the California DMV, your license will be suspended if you fail or refuse a chemical test. Do you have a contrary citation?
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Zeldman
Touchdown! Greaser!
So.... with self driving cars....if a person has has too much to drink can they lock themselves in the trunk and have the car drive itself home.??
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Is It Legal to Sleep in a Self-Driving Car on the Road? - Freedom For All Americans
Is it legal to sleep in a self-driving car while it's on the road? Learn what U.S. laws say about autonomous vehicles and driver responsibilities in 2025.
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Albany Tom
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There's a mindset out there by some, that's roughly "it doesn't matter what the process is, this is so important that we need to break the rules to fix it." In my opinion, no, we don't. I'm remembering, maybe mis-remembering a case where the constitutionality of DUI check road blocks was questioned. The reasoning being, that there was by definition no probable cause for the stops, they were checking everyone. The court ruled - if my memory was right - that while it wasn't constitutional it would be allowed, because drunk driving is so serious that we need to ignore that rule. Well, again my opinion, that's the wrong answer.
We collectively need to wrap our heads around the concept that some problems, even bad ones, can't be completely solved. Anyone doing risk management and flying airplanes should understand that. There's no such thing as 100% safe, there's never the perfect day, perfect airplane, perfect pilot. We manage the risks and we balance the desired goals with them. That's a core concept in flying. Here, with all of this, we should be recognizing that there's no penalty in some areas for ignoring probable cause and punishing completely innocent people. That's not acceptable. We can't - repeat cannot - change the fact that there will always be some percentage of people on the road driving drunk. We can change the environment so that sober people aren't driving in fear of law enforcement.
And no, I've never had a problem with a traffic stop myself, that's not may angle. And yes, I've lost a family member to criminals, I do understand that type of frustration. But you can't sweep the good up with the bad in trying to eliminate the bad. I'm fine with burying the bad, in a literal sense, but only if we're as close to 100% certainty as we can be. I kinda think we should have a drinking license just as we have a driver's license, in part because drunks don't need cars to hurt people.
And back to the FAA part of this, if we're going to continue down the road where in some states there's no probable cause effectively required for an arrest, then it would make sense to remove any conditions triggered on an arrest from the FAR's. That arrests just become a thing that they assume anyone who drives a car may have.
We collectively need to wrap our heads around the concept that some problems, even bad ones, can't be completely solved. Anyone doing risk management and flying airplanes should understand that. There's no such thing as 100% safe, there's never the perfect day, perfect airplane, perfect pilot. We manage the risks and we balance the desired goals with them. That's a core concept in flying. Here, with all of this, we should be recognizing that there's no penalty in some areas for ignoring probable cause and punishing completely innocent people. That's not acceptable. We can't - repeat cannot - change the fact that there will always be some percentage of people on the road driving drunk. We can change the environment so that sober people aren't driving in fear of law enforcement.
And no, I've never had a problem with a traffic stop myself, that's not may angle. And yes, I've lost a family member to criminals, I do understand that type of frustration. But you can't sweep the good up with the bad in trying to eliminate the bad. I'm fine with burying the bad, in a literal sense, but only if we're as close to 100% certainty as we can be. I kinda think we should have a drinking license just as we have a driver's license, in part because drunks don't need cars to hurt people.
And back to the FAA part of this, if we're going to continue down the road where in some states there's no probable cause effectively required for an arrest, then it would make sense to remove any conditions triggered on an arrest from the FAR's. That arrests just become a thing that they assume anyone who drives a car may have.
Jon Wilder
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The “saving lives is more important than preserving your rights” fallacy.
Orthogonal?
But again, without all the records…employer, treatment facility, FAA, it’s anecdotal.
And no, I’m not discounting the individual applied for a medical and was ultimately denied.
To be fair acquittal is an outcome; it does not erase arrest.
Albany Tom
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Yeah, but I'd present it more in the "ends don't justify the means" construct. To me it's an issue of morality, not constitutionality. Maybe that's just my simplistic good/bad black/white mindset.
Jon Wilder
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The way Administrative Per Se works is that your license is suspended immediately upon arrest. The officer takes your license and issues you a temporary 30-day license. You may drive for the first 30 days on that temp license. Once the temp license expires, your suspension period starts.
You can request an administrative hearing within 10 days of the receipt of the suspension/revocation order. If the review shows there is no basis for the suspension or revocation, the action will be set aside.
The problem is that these labs are backed up 8-9 months. People are waiting almost a whole year just to get the result back. Impossible to contest this at an administrative hearing when you can't even get the evidence you need for the hearing.
Lindberg
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Please cite the statute or other official source that contradicts the official source I posted. Otherwise, I'm comfortable taking the California DMV's word about how it works (which comports with my reading of the statute) over yours.
Ed Haywood
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In every state, probable cause is required and due process is followed. Courts test laws against the Constitution to protect your rights.
No law enforcement system has ever been 100% accurate and immune to abuse. Never has, never will. Still gotta have one.
Your fallacy is a fallacy. False binary choice. Every state has due process to protect your rights. Plenty of defense lawyers make a good living working that process.
This thread is mostly hot garbage. Oh look, here's a guy on YouTube who says he got screwed. That must mean the whole system is screwed up everywhere.
UTLonghorn_1979
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I think the point that some are making, and I agree with, is that - in the event someone’s bad behavior/abuse of the system (I.e. false DUI arrest, false FAA hotline report, etc), the time and effort to unwind that falsehood is potentially unreasonably long and expensive.
Ed Haywood
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The FAA point is a fair one.
This is the almost universal refrain, and it is also almost universally promoted by those who have yet to enjoy the labyrinthine machinations of the state, and all its splendor.
Hoping, reality never steps in and spoils the view.
Albany Tom
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I'll agree that probable cause should be required, and that people have a right to due process. But we have an example of a state where that's clearly not the case. Probable cause to pull over the car based on erratic driving? Absolutely. But for an arrest without a breathalyzer or refusal to take same? That's, to me, silly.
Completely agree that we're never going to get perfection. But the FAA plan of assuming a problem based on assuming that there actually was probable cause for an arrest doesn't match with the current state of our society. Go back to the 80's, and from what I remember a drunk driving arrest meant something along the lines of - you were in an accident and clearly drunk, you were in a fatal accident and might be drunk, or you took a swing at a cop or ran into his car. That's really not much of an exaggeration, if any. So assuming that probable cause was valid, and that a double check of a person's medical based on that back then was completely valid.
But now we're in a time where it's not so much real probable cause, but "well, this might be a problem so just in case let's make the arrest", and that behavior has become not just accepted but in some places it seems encouraged.
I'm one that doesn't think that there's any need to look harder for the drunks, but instead stop giving them infinite chances.
Ed Haywood
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We are in general agreement. Law enforcement in a free society always has to balance rights with effectiveness. I do not deny that bureaucratic overreach happens, especially in the FAA.
But let's go back to the good old days as you suggest. The 80's were when American society decided we had enough and something had to be done. Stricter laws and more aggressive enforcement was the solution. The numbers since then tell the story:
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Albany Tom
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I think so, too. And while I think much of the 80's were good old days in many aspects, the general acceptability of driving drunk wasn't one of them. As a society, I think things have changed from something people joked about, to the realization of most people that you're risking killing someone by doing so.
Now we're at a point where I think some fine tuning is required. I don't think we've fixed recidivism at all, I think that enforcement needs to be standardized and have more widespread understanding of what probable cause is, and I think the FAA regs need to be adjusted to make it just as quick to undo a false assertion than it is to get caught up in one. Just my 2 cents.
Ed Haywood
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Yes, agreed on all. But demonizing the blue collar joes doing the hard dangerous work for the rest of us is unjustified. Not saying you did that.
It seems to me, that it's the FAA is stuck in the 'good ole days' of the 80s. FAA: Arrest, notification, sentence, arraignment, trial, conviction. Sentencing should not be where it is from the 80s.
I also have a problem with the FAA being an admin agency that fails by use of the general logic fault of negative proof. (one has been arrested for DUI, now - go prove to the agency one is not a drunk or suffer the consequence) We are not only due due process as pilots, we should also get the same general theme that's held in the US of innocence until proven guilty - even though there is no strict law, or regulation to that effect. But - there are many, many state and fed rulings from the bench(s) which follow this protocol.
Oh, and the boys in blue are hardly in a dangerous profession. LEO rarely breaks the top 20 in such lists.
I also have a problem with the FAA being an admin agency that fails by use of the general logic fault of negative proof. (one has been arrested for DUI, now - go prove to the agency one is not a drunk or suffer the consequence) We are not only due due process as pilots, we should also get the same general theme that's held in the US of innocence until proven guilty - even though there is no strict law, or regulation to that effect. But - there are many, many state and fed rulings from the bench(s) which follow this protocol.
Oh, and the boys in blue are hardly in a dangerous profession. LEO rarely breaks the top 20 in such lists.
Let’s not give all the credit to law enforcement. they assisted. but MADD and the cultural shift their and others’ work marked a huge cultural shift from people believing dui was not that serious to the current widespread condemnation of anyone who drives drunk. as it should in my view
Jon Wilder
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If you go back and read the very thing you linked to, you'll find much of what I stated in my post. You're welcome.
Jon Wilder
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The state driving authority is completely separate from the court system. They could care less about rights because driving itself is a privilege, not a right.
There are MANY people who have gotten screwed by this sober DUI nonsense. This isn't just "some guy on YouTube that got screwed".
2,547 sober DUI arrests from 2017 to 2024 in the state of Tennessee, with 419 sober DUI arrests in 2024 alone.
The TN legislature felt the issue was bad enough to pass a law requiring the TN Bureau of Investigation to report all sober DUI arrests along with naming the agencies that made them. The results are in...and of all of the law enforcement agencies in Tennessee, the Tennessee Highway Patrol is responsible for most of them.
Then the THP Colonel goes on the news defending the practice! He literally says in the video "They (chemical test results) may have come back from the TBI lab with nothing in their system, but that doesn't make them a sober driver". Here's a link to that video -
And here you go...more on sober DUI.
I don't at all condone drunk driving. But I also don't condone allowing people in positions of authority trampling on peoples' rights under the guise of "safety". The ends do not justify the means.
I hope you never have to deal with this yourself, but I bet you won't be so dismissive if you ever do.
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I am not picking on you specifically, but I’ve seen a lot of very similar statements made lately. Unfortunately, laws are what they are, not what we want them to be. Fortunately, there is also a process to change those laws.
Now I haven’t looked at the underlying statutes being bandied about here, so I won’t opine on what’s silly or not. Generally though, probable cause is not required for any detention (a traffic stop is a detention). Reasonable suspicion is all that’s required for a detention. During the detention, if enough sufficient, reliable facts and the circumstances are gathered by the officer, probable cause can be established by the officer and a warrantless arrest can be made.
It’s with that knowledge I will refer to what is first written (statute), then look at what’s been said (case law) in forming my opinion.
I’m also cynical enough to accept abuses occur and can’t be prevented as case law opens up just enough room that law enforcement can get a Mack truck thru.
Albany Tom
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And that's, to me, consistent with my perspective, too. That we all have a bit of an obligation to point out what's not working, and get it changed. In the context of DUI arrests, in my view the discretionary approach isn't working in all states, and it would be pretty simple to address with some controls. It could also be done through an adjustment of what the expectations of the behavior of the officers are, but that requires a level of either authority or dedication that some at the elected level just don't have, apparently. Or in other words, the law will eventually become what we collectively want it to be, for good or bad that's how the system works, it's just a question of who's dragging their feet not realizing what is going to happen.
I'll also say that I don't think this is at all an officer problem. Like most things it's a lack of correct leadership problem. That TN SP video pretty much proves it. Bad results are a result of bad management, to pretty much paraphrase everyone that's understood or written about it.
Lindberg
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I just read it for the fourth time. Why don't you show me where it says everyone who gets arrested has their license suspended, not just those who fail or refuse a chemical test.
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Ed Haywood
Final Approach
In all of those cases, charges were dropped when blood tests were negative. Nobody got screwed.
98% of DUI arrests by THP during that period tested positive.
Could that be better? Sure. But it will never be 100%. So I guess you'll just have to keep whining about it.