Driving While Medicated

“Besides alcohol, there are many other drugs that can affect a person's ability to drive safely. These drugs can have effects like those of alcohol, or even worse. This is true of many prescription drugs and even many of the drugs you can buy without a prescription. Drugs taken for headaches, colds, hay fever or other allergies or those to calm nerves can make a person drowsy and affect their driving. Pep pills, ‘uppers’ and diet pills can cause a person to be nervous, dizzy, and unable to concentrate and can affect his or her vision. Other prescription drugs can affect your reflexes, judgment, vision and alertness in ways similar to alcohol.”

– Florida Driver’s Handbook, 2009 edition.

Many of us consume prescription drugs on a daily basis for a variety of ailments. Some of those drugs can cause us to become slightly impaired, while others might interact with an over-the-counter drug that we might be using for a cough, cold or flu and bring us to the point where we could legally become impaired. This is a somewhat scary thought, especially when you visit websites that reveal statistics like these: In 2008, more than 53,000 people were arrested for driving under the influence (DUI); more than 8,500 of those were ticketed for drug impairment offenses.

These are statistics from Pennsylvania alone, which means that these people are on the road with the rest of us. Pennsylvania is now participating in ARIDE (Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement) efforts designed to help officers better detect drivers impaired by prescription or illicit drug use. Although alcohol is still the number one source of impairment, more than 2,300 auto accidents in Pennsylvania last year involved drivers under the influence of prescription drugs.

Not all cases involving driving under the influence are proven by breathalyzers or blood alcohol tests. The officer needs to have a reason to stop you, called ‘probable cause,’ which can be for anything from driving erratically, weaving in and out of lanes, or slowing down or speeding up for no reason. Once you are stopped, the police also gather important evidence of intoxication by administering standard field sobriety tests at the scene. Common field sobriety tests include the finger-to-nose test, one-legged stand, walk-and-turn test, horizontal-gaze-nystagmus test, picking up coins, counting backwards, reciting the alphabet and throwing and/or catching a ball.

As you can see, some of these tests involve motor skills at which many elderly or infirm people are not very good, even while sober and not using any drugs. Imagine a fairly uncoordinated elderly lady who is stopped for driving erratically, who is then asked to play pitch and catch with a police officer while standing at the side of the road in front of a police car with flashing lights. The stress of that episode is enough to cause her to have problems passing the test.

Adding an over-the-counter treatment to your regular medicine can have unintended effects on your driving, and you need to be aware of how you are going to react. Not to suggest that you should practice these field sobriety tests, but if you suspect that you might not be able to handle certain mixtures of drugs, you might want to administer a self-test. If you cannot flip a coin into the air and catch it several times without dropping it, or if you drop four or five coins on the floor and have a hard time picking them up because your balance is off, let that be a signal to you that you might be impaired.

If you find yourself in front of a police car with flashing lights, try to remember that you have the right to remain silent. This is a constitutional guarantee given to you under the Fifth Amendment. So when the officer approaches your vehicle, you can ask him or her why you were stopped and you can give them your identification and your insurance information, but if they ask you any questions about where you have been, or what you may have had to eat or drink, you are under no obligation to answer them. You can either say that you prefer not to answer, or that you would like to speak to your attorney before giving any type of statement.

This does not guarantee that you won’t be arrested and charged with an offense, but it will give your attorney a lot more to use to defend you. Once you say that you had a couple of beers after work or a glass of wine at dinner, you have opened the door to a field sobriety test, which can expose you to some real trouble. And remember that the officer is trying to enforce the law, so talking your way out of trouble is a lot harder than talking yourself into trouble.

Christopher M. Abernethy has been practicing law in Hampton Township since 1976. He focuses on elder law, which includes wills, trusts, powers of attorney, living wills and probate matters. He also is proficient in all aspects of real estate law and business law. He is a member of the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys and the AARP Legal Services Network. He can be reached at 412-486-6624 or by email at cabernethy@aaylaw.com.