DWI vs DUI: What a DWI Arrest Means in Georgia

By: William C. Head, Drunk Driving Book Author and Criminal Defense Lawyer Near Me

What a DWI Arrest Means and Why Georgia Calls It a DUI

A DWI arrest means that a driver has been taken into custody on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, or driving while impaired. It is the label used in states such as Texas, New York, and North Carolina. The arrest opens the case. It does not decide it.

Georgia has no DWI offense. Georgia prosecutes impaired driving as DUI. A person arrested in Atlanta, in Athens, or anywhere else in the state is charged with DUI, even when the driver, a news report, or an out-of-state insurer calls it a DWI.

That difference matters. Courts and licensing agencies generally treat an out-of-state DWI and a Georgia DUI as the same species of offense. A prior DWI from another state can count against a driver in a later Georgia case, and a Georgia DUI can follow a driver to a state that uses the DWI label.

An arrest also settles less than people assume. It means an officer formed the belief that impairment existed and started the booking process. It does not mean a conviction. The State still has to prove the charge.

Georgia grades the offense as a misdemeanor, or as a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature, depending on the facts and the driver's record.

How DWI Stops Work and What Happens Roadside

DWI stops and DUI stops in Georgia follow the same sequence, whatever the state calls the offense. The order helps explain what the officer was doing at each step.

It starts with a reason to stop the car. An officer may pull a driver over for an observed traffic violation, an equipment problem such as a broken tail light, or driving behavior that gives rise to reasonable articulable suspicion.

Next comes the contact at the window. The officer asks for a license and proof of insurance, watches how the driver reaches for them, and asks whether the driver has been drinking. The report will often mention an odor of alcohol, red eyes, or slurred speech. Those are opinions, and opinions can be tested.

The officer may then ask for roadside evaluations. In Georgia, field sobriety evaluations and the handheld roadside breath device are voluntary, and a driver may decline them. The history sections above show how those tests began without science behind them.

If the officer decides to arrest, Georgia's implied consent notice is read, and the State asks for a breath, blood, or urine test. Refusing the state test carries separate license consequences, handled through an administrative process on a short deadline. Speak with an attorney immediately rather than guessing at it.

Checkpoints work differently. At a roadblock the officer needs no suspicion about your car, so the questions shift to how the checkpoint was planned and run. In DUI cases handled in Atlanta-area and Clarke County courts, the video and the officer's report often matter more than the driver's recollection.

Strange DUI Facts – Arrests Can Be Made on ANY Type of "Vehicle"

Can you get a DUI on a bicycle? Yes, but not in all states. It depends upon the wording of your state's DUI-DWI laws, and whether a "vehicle" is defined as having a motor or engine. You can also get a DUI while driving a boat! It is called a "Boating Under the Influence" charge, or a BUI. The same blood alcohol content or BAC levels apply on the water as they do on the road, where the limit for drivers 21 and older is 0.08 percent. This DUI law applies if you are driving down Georgia 400 or you are cruising on Lake Lanier. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) patrols the waterways and their officers can pull your boat over and check the driver's level of impairment.

Georgia answers these questions its own way. To convict a person of driving under the influence, the State must show that the person drove or was in actual physical control of a moving vehicle. Georgia traffic law treats a bicycle as a vehicle, so a bicycle case can be charged here.

Boats sit elsewhere. Georgia handles impaired boating under separate boating laws rather than under the state's DUI statute, so a BUI is a distinct charge. States using the DWI label draw these lines differently, and some leave bicycles out entirely.

Can You Get a DUI While Driving on Your Own Property?

The answer to this question is: YES, in some states. This question is one of the more interesting and baffling of all drunk driving facts, since land ownership was of paramount importance to our English ancestors. Our heritage, coming from our roots in England, is that land ownership is a sacred right of being a citizen. Trespassers can be ejected or even killed, under some circumstances. When it comes to laws prohibiting driving while impaired, these time-honored concepts of your home being your kingdom have fallen to the wayside (in some states) when it comes to DUI-DWI laws. Ultimately several states, like Georgia, have passed laws that proscribe being in control of any motor vehicle "under the influence" ANYWHERE within the state, including on your own private property like your farm or a lake house. That's right, you could be at your own 3,000 acre farm in south Georgia, be driving your tractor to plow under the fallow fields while sipping on beer all day, and later be found (by a Department of Natural Resources officer who is patrolling for illegal hunters) passed out and slumped over on your tractor, with the engine off, and be lawfully arrested for impaired driving on your own land. This is true despite having never left your own land, and posing no danger to any other person or vehicle on Earth. So, being on a farm tractor that does not ever reach any public right-of-way or highway can support a Georgia DUI. DUI arrests have been made for allegedly intoxicated operators of golf carts (electric or gas powered), riding lawn mowers, mopeds, fork lifts, bulldozers, a Zamboni ice resurfacing machine inside of a building housing an ice skating rink, and many other "vehicles" including a horse and an electric wheel chair.

Breathalyzers Are Relatively NEW, so Blood Tests Were Done in the Early Days

At first, the DUI-DWI laws in America were simple. Police could smell alcohol on the driver, and most drivers (when asked) admitted drinking some alcohol. So, the arrest process for drunk driving by alcohol was very simple and uncomplicated. The officer's opinion of alcohol intoxication was based upon his or her description of a drunk person, who happened to be driving. Since breath alcohol test equipment was not yet invented until the 1930s (Drunkometer and Intoximeter were the initial devices), any forensic test collected by police would have been a blood test. Seldom did cops request a warrant, in those days. No DUI attorneys (as criminal defense lawyer near me) were around to make legal challenges, since much of our nation's current Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment law was developed in the 1960s and 1970s, during the Warren Court. So, most arrests for drunken driving were made on the officer's "opinion" of being "too drunk to drive." Then, as now, drinking and driving for adults age 21 and older was legal.

An Early Field Sobriety Test Could Have Been Almost Anything

Any field sobriety test given at the roadway was untested, unproven and based on no studies or science. No effort to standardize field sobriety testing occurred until the late 1970s and early 1980s. Each officer would dream up and use all sorts of unproven roadside tests to support an arrest decision, and criminal defense attorneys seldom challenged the LACK of any science to back these up. Count backwards from 100 to 1. Say the alphabet backwards. Anything the officer dreamed up was used against the driver. Even today, the reliability and repeatability of consistent roadside tests has very high margins of error. Any DUI defense lawyer worth a dime will advise clients to NEVER take voluntary and optional field sobriety tests. These tests are not part of the Georgia implied consent law. Implied consent means that in exchange for the Department of Driver Services issuing you a valid driver's license, you give consent to submit to a breath test or other chemical test during a DUI investigation. You can refuse to take these tests but there will be consequences if you are convicted of drunk driving or drugged driving. Our job as trial lawyers is to work to avoid a guilty verdict. Call today (404) 567-5515 and set up a free lawyer consultation with one of our DUI lawyers near me. We are local attorneys with our main office in the center of Sandy Springs, Georgia.

DUI Defense Lawyers Were Not a Known Practice Area

For most of the last century, the work of a DUI lawyer or DWI attorney was not a distinct area of practice. Drunk driving cases went to the family attorney, or to the only lawyer in town. Arrests were few, so no one built a practice around them. No random DUI checkpoints existed, and an officer generally had to see a car being driven on a public road.

That changed as cars, trucks and highway speeds multiplied, and crash numbers rose with them. The Eisenhower highway system of the 1950s pushed speeds up. Lawmakers answered public pressure by tightening the statutes. Today, sitting behind the wheel with the key or key fob while impaired can support a DUI arrest, even when the car never moves.

Because impaired driving defense is now a developed area of defense work, the proof in a modern case is technical. A file can include breath-testing instrument records, calibration and maintenance history, video from the stop, and how the standardized evaluations were given. Counsel reviews all of it, because small departures from protocol matter. The same evolution happened in states using the DWI label, which is why a DWI arrest and a Georgia DUI arrest now look almost identical from the roadside forward.

What Is Aggravated DUI? Is a DUI a Felony?

Georgia does not use a separate "aggravated DUI" charge the way some states do. The charge is DUI under Georgia's impaired driving statute, whether the test result is low or high. Severity shows up in two other places: the grading, and the count of prior convictions.

Georgia grades a DUI as a misdemeanor, or as a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature. Most Georgia DUI cases are misdemeanors. Felony exposure arises in limited circumstances. A fourth or subsequent DUI conviction within the ten-year measuring period can be treated as a felony. Cases involving a death or a serious injury are charged as separate offenses, such as vehicular homicide or serious injury by vehicle.

Three different time periods appear in Georgia DUI law, and people mix them up. Keep them apart:

• A second DUI is measured over ten years, counting from arrest dates.
• Habitual violator status turns on three qualifying convictions within five years.
• Publication in the county legal organ and the ignition interlock requirement attach to a second or subsequent conviction within five years.

High BAC levels still matter here, even without a separate charge name. A high reading can shape how a prosecutor views the case and what a judge does at sentencing. Some states, including West Virginia, built a separate tier around the test result. Georgia did not.

Penalty exposure on a Georgia DUI conviction can include jail time, a fine, community service, license consequences, DUI school, and a clinical evaluation. What applies depends on the facts, the county, and the driver's history.

What to Do After a DWI or DUI Arrest in Georgia

The days right after an arrest matter. A few simple steps protect your options later.

Keep every piece of paper. The citation, the arrest paperwork, the bond documents, and any property receipt carry dates, times, and case numbers your lawyer will need.

Write down what happened while it is fresh. What did the officer say at the window? What were you asked to do at the roadside? Did you take any test, and where? Note whether anything was recorded, because video may be kept for only a limited time.

Calendar your first court date and treat it as fixed. Missing it creates a new problem on top of the charge.

Then get counsel involved quickly. The license side of a Georgia DUI case moves on its own administrative track, separate from the criminal case, and it runs on a short deadline. Ask a lawyer right away rather than guessing at it.

What happens next depends on the facts, the county, and the evidence. An Atlanta DUI lawyer can review the stop and the testing and explain the realistic range of outcomes.

Get a Free Consultation About Your Georgia DUI Charge

If you were arrested and are trying to sort out whether you face a DWI or a Georgia DUI, we can help you read the paperwork. William C. Head, PC defends Georgia DUI charges statewide, including cases involving out-of-state drivers whose home states use the DWI label.

The consultation is free and confidential. A lawyer reviews the stop, the testing, and the charge as written, then answers your questions. You can also ask about legal fees and whether a DUI reduced to reckless driving charge is realistic on your facts. Call (404) 567-5515 or request a FREE DUI criminal case assessment online. Moving early matters, because the license track runs on its own timetable.

Related reading: DUI Less Safe Georgia, how to beat a breathalyzer test, How Long After Smoking Weed can You Get a DUI, Attorney for Dui, and our Sandy Springs DUI lawyers page.

Frequently Asked Questions About a DWI or DUI Arrest in Georgia

What Does a DWI Arrest Mean if the Arrest Happened in Georgia?

It means you were arrested for impaired driving, but Georgia will charge it as DUI. Georgia has no DWI offense. Your citation and the court file will refer to DUI, even if you or your insurer say DWI.

Does Georgia Charge DWI or DUI?

Georgia charges DUI. Every impaired driving case in the state is prosecuted under Georgia's DUI statute, whether the substance is alcohol, drugs, or both. DWI is the term other states chose. It has no separate legal meaning in a Georgia courtroom.

What Happens During a DWI Stop Before an Arrest Is Made?

The officer needs a reason for the stop, talks with the driver, notes any signs of impairment, and may ask for voluntary roadside evaluations. The arrest decision comes after that. In Georgia, field sobriety evaluations and the handheld roadside breath device are optional.

How Long Does a Prior DUI Count Against You in Georgia?

For a second DUI, Georgia measures ten years, counting from arrest dates. Other rules use different windows. Habitual violator status looks at three qualifying convictions within five years, and interlock and publication requirements attach to a second conviction within five years.

Can a Georgia DUI Conviction Be Removed From Your Record?

No. A Georgia DUI conviction is not eligible for record restriction or expungement. The conviction stays on the driver's criminal history and driving history. That is one reason to have a lawyer review the charge before deciding how to resolve it.