Can You Be Charged With DUI Without Driving?
Reader’s Question:
Is it true that you can be charged with DUI even if you are not driving? A friend here in Tulsa, Oklahoma told me about that and the reason I ask is that it seems so weird.
Don
Tulsa, OK
Yes, it may seem so weird that you can be charged with DUI in Tulsa, Oklahoma (or anywhere in Oklahoma for that matter) even if you are not driving just so long as you had had some alcohol to drink and you are sitting or maybe sleeping in your car. This is what popularly known in Oklahoma as “Actual Physical Control” (APC) wherein you are not actually driving but you are in control of the vehicle. DUI and APC are often confusing to people especially if a person has been arrested for alcohol-related traffic offense when he is not driving.
A lot of people have experienced this when they knew they had had too much alcohol to drink to drive safely. They usually just pull over to “wait it out” and thought that it would be the right thing to do but they were arrested for a crime that is effectively the same as DUI. Doing this is no better off than if they had gone ahead and tried to drive home, although the only difference is that they can avoid a car wreck while driving since they had to “wait it out.” This simply means that pulling over is not enough, the vehicle should be totally off any street or road.
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