Five Ways to Be (Very) Wrong About Driving

Q: I got pulled over because I didn’t dim my headlights at night. All I did was flash my headlights because I thought the oncoming headlights were way too bright. I wasn’t driving with my high beams on. I feel it’s bull***t. I was charged with failure to dim my lights, driving on a revoked license and DUI. Was I driving DUI? Yes. I just don’t feel they had probable cause to pull me over. Never seen me driving drunk or nothing. Please help.

A. You’re not going to like this. –long pause– Now that I’ve taken a few deep breaths, I’m going to dial my response back a bit so this is still publishable. Here we go: You’re wrong. You were wrong when you drove with a revoked license. You were wrong to get in the driver’s seat while impaired. You’re wrong about the officer’s probable cause. You’re wrong about the officer not seeing you driving impaired. The only thing you’re right about is that you need help. But I suspect you weren’t asking for that kind of help so you’re wrong there too.

Let’s work through all the wrongs, starting with the revoked license. With this one statement you’ve put yourself in a select group. In Washington only five percent of drivers have their license suspended, revoked or canceled. You almost have to be intentionally bad at driving to get your license revoked. Any reasonable driver in that category would make efforts to not get pulled over, but not you, which brings us to the next point.

Even though you’re not supposed to drive at all, you chose to pilot a multi-ton projectile while impaired, and then thought it wasn’t fair that you got caught. Put another way, you took an action that is responsible for 58 percent of traffic fatalities in Washington despite only a small percentage of drivers actually participating in that behavior, and you think you’re the one being harmed.

You don’t think there was probable cause for the traffic stop even though you admit to committing a violation of the law. The law requires drivers to switch to low beams when approaching an oncoming vehicle within 500 feet. I understand that plenty of people flash their high beams at oncoming cars to let the other driver know to dim their lights. You may think that’s helpful, but that doesn’t make it legal. Is it worth getting a ticket for? Maybe not, but if you were licensed and sober I’d bet that you would have driven away with a warning. While the violation itself is minor, making traffic stops for flashing high beams is a legitimate strategy for investigating impaired driving, as I’ll explain next.

You said you flashed your high beams because the oncoming headlights were “way too bright.” We’ve already addressed that you were driving impaired, so I’m going to discount the credibility of your assessment of brightness. Here’s why: Alcohol delays the responsiveness of pupil dilation and contraction. Normally when you encounter a car on a dark roadway your pupils constrict a bit so that the lights don’t seem so bright. It’s kind of like the auto-aperture setting on a camera that makes sure that your pictures aren’t over-exposed. Once you add alcohol your pupils don’t constrict as fast and everyone’s headlights seem too bright, even if they’re not on high beams.

Despite your statement, the officer did see you driving impaired. Since the details weren’t included in your question, I’m going to guess the scenario of how this traffic stop played out. You saw a car approaching you and you flashed your high beams at it. The car you flashed was being driven by a police officer who didn’t actually his have high beams activated. Because of what the officer knows about alcohol and how it affects vision, he recognized your action as consistent with someone impaired by alcohol. No, it wasn’t the classic weaving over the fog line, but there are many ways impairment manifests itself in driving and you demonstrated one of them, triggering a suspicion that you may be impaired. The violation of the law, although minor, provided probable cause to make a traffic stop and investigate further. As the officer interacted with you on the traffic stop it became apparent by your behavior that you were impaired, leading to you getting arrested.

Based on the information you provided it looks like you legitimately earned your arrest. I’ve always tried to be helpful and informative in this column, but I’ve never promised any sympathy, and you’re not getting any from me on this one.