This Labor Day, Tennessee DUI checkpoints will be using mandatory blood draws to determine if you’re drunk.
Holidays are the only excuse most Americans need to get some alcohol in their system and party it up. This is all well and good, but the Tennessee police are demanding that you not drive in those cases. As faulty as breathalysers can be, they’re upping the ante, at least in Tennessee. Drunk or not, if you pass a DUI checkpoint this Labor Day in Tennessee and they suspect you’re impaired in any way, prepare to face the needle.
Blood draws in Tennessee began in 2009 as a consequence of vehicular assault, a foolproof way to know whether or not alcohol was involved in the injury or death of a victim of reckless driving. In all other cases, the blood test could be refused, such as in DUI checkpoints. Thanks to a new law, however, the time for tolerance is done. This Labor Day, you can’t refuse a blood test at a Tennessee DUI checkpoint.
Even if you’ve only been charged with a DUI one time in the past, they can still check up on you with a blood draw. If the Tennessee police think you’re under the influence, you either submit to a blood draw or you get your license suspended, plain and simple. It could be worse, though, as in Georgia, it’s not unheard of to be strapped to a table for refusing the breathalyser test, as shown in the video below.
Roads may very well be blocked as drivers will be forced into a parking lot where police will question everybody before allowing them to move along past the Tennessee DUI checkpoint . If you even show the least reluctance, you could be subject to the full alcohol test, no questions asked, no refusal. Blood warrants will be that easy to obtain on demand this Labor Day.
Defense attorney Gregory P. Isaacs has stated he has a problem with this new level of Holiday testing, “Any time government is allowed to commit a seizure of your body and withdraw evidence prior to being arrested for a crime opens the door for a lot of issues. This law really opens Pandora’s box on virtually every DUI stop and weakens all of our fundamental freedoms.”
Some would say the Tennessee DUI checkpoints are justifiable, considering the amount of drunk driving deaths every year. Just cooperate this Labor Day and you should be on your merry way soon enough.