It is the phone call that all parents hope to avoid.
A recent end of the summer party in a large city in the midwest led to the ticketing of several teenagers who left a party that involved alcohol. Getting tipped off that something was going on in a particular house, the police had been sent to the location. And while several of the high school students stayed in the home and were asked to call their parents, your son was one of the people who made a mad dash for his car and tried to escape.
Believing him that he had not consumed more than one drink very early in the evening, you immediately called one the DUI attorneys in town. Using the attorneys advice, you decided to challenge the ticket in court. For while you want your son to be held accountable for his actions, you do not want one drink, one night, followed by one irrational decision to try to get away to affect him for the rest of his senior year in high school and the college opportunities that he may have.
DUI Attorneys Help Families Make the Best of a Difficult Situation
He is still your son and she is still your daughter. Even if you receive the phone call from your teenager or college age student that they need you to come get them because they have been ticketed for minor in possession or driving under the influence, you are still the parent. And as parenting often goes, your first instinct should be to look out for your son or daughter’s best interest and save the lecturing for later. For while it may seem like a good idea to have them suck it up and suffer the consequences of their actions, the reality is that the consequences are often too big to handle alone.
Making the decision to call DUI attorneys sooner rather than later can help a family deal with the consequences of a DUI ticket or a drunk driving charge. Drivers license suspension is a life changing event. Without the freedom of driving to work and to school themselves, teens as well as adults can miss out on both income and educational opportunities. And while a license suspension may seem like something that you can get through, the reality of a long suspension can be devastating.
Experienced Criminal Defense Lawyers Provide Guidance and Advice
To understand the importance of getting advice from DUI attorneys it is important to understand the statistics and implications of of a drunk driving offense, including the following, many of which are provided by the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving:
- Drunk driving costs America $199 billion a year.
- The average drunk driver has driven under the influence 80 times before the first arrest.
- On every day in America, people drive drunk almost 300,000 times, but fewer than 4,000 are arrested.
- In the year 2012, 10.3 million people indicated that they had driven under the influence of illicit drugs in the past year.
- More than 1.4 million people are arrested every year for first offense DUIs.
- Although the national average cost of DUI is nearly $10,000, the average, including fines and lawyer costs, can often be much higher or lower depending on the part of the country.
Minimizing the Damage from a DUI Often Requires Attorneys
A parent’s initial reaction if they receive a phone call saying that their son or daughter has been stopped for drinking and driving is often abger. And while you may be very thankful that no one is injured, that relieve does not last long once you realize the implications of the arrest, the possible fines, and the possible length of a license suspension.
No family wants to deal with bad news, especially if it involves drinking and driving. Bad news, however, almost never gets better if it is avoided. In an effort to control the damage caused by a DUI arrest, many families decide to consult a team of DUI attorneys. With the consultations that the legal team can provide and the presence of a lawyer in the courtroom, many families find that the stress of dealing with the entire process is lessened. Immediately seeking legal advice often helps.