The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced an aggressive push for DUI enforcement across the country this 2023 Labor Day weekend. The Colorado Department of Transportation has also announced a Colorado DUI crackdown that will span from August 16 through September 6, 2023. The end of the summer involves a lot of house parties, barbecues, boating, and back to school parties that commonly involve drinking. The DOT boasts that in 2022 there were 694 Colorado DUI arrests during this same period.
These enhanced enforcement periods usually involve increased numbers of officers on patrol who are on the highways with only the job of looking for drinking drivers. Checkpoints are also more common during these enhanced holiday DUI enforcement periods. It is also common practice for more officers to be on patrol that have the most experience and advanced training in detecting DUI drivers. For data on past statistics of Colorado DUI fatalities, click here.
Uber also has a special program during this high DUI period that provides a $10 Uber ride credit. Click on this link to apply for the credit directly though Uber. This is certainly the cheapest way to avoid a DUI conviction.
If you do get pulled over after having anything to drink, you will be asked by a law enforcement officer to complete roadside sobriety exercises. Colorado DUI law does NOT require you to participate in these exercises. The exercises are not designed to identify sober drivers; they are designed to make sure EVERY impaired driver fails. This sensitivity allows for some non-impaired drivers to be deemed "fails" by police. In one study conducted in the 1990s, about half of sober people tested by officers were rated as "impaired" by officers administering sobriety exercises.
Refusing a breath or blood specimen in Colorado is a little different. You still have a right to keep the contents of your breath or blood private under the United States Constitition, however Colorado DMV rules provide that if you exercise this Constitutional right, the DMV can revoke your license for one year. This hardly sounds like a "right" when you can be penalized for exercising it, but it is Colorado DUI law.