Drunk driving, drinking and driving, the act of operating a motor vehicle after having consumed alcoholic beverages can go by several names. Regardless of what you call it, however, it is illegal almost every jurisdictions within the United States. Specifically, these offenses are what's known officially as Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) or Driving Under the Influence (DUI).

DUI in the United States

The origins of drinking and driving laws go back to New York, who back in 1910 was the first state to adopt laws against driving under the influence of alcohol. Shortly thereafter, California and other states followed suit. Early laws were worded in such a way that they just prohibited driving while intoxicated, without setting a specific definition of what "intoxicated" was, at what level of inebriation a person was deemed "too drunk" to operate a vehicle. This suggests that this was simply left to the discretion of local law enforcement. It wasn't until the 1970s and 1980s when states started to adopt strict, more thorough DUI laws. This was mainly due to pressure from groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Most states in the United States designate a specific blood or breath alcohol level as the threshold point where a person is deemed to be too impaired to operate a vehicle. The most common legal blood alcohol content level in the United States is 0.08. Some states include a lesser charge at a blood alcohol content level that is less than the legal limit for the more serious charge. Most states have set a much stricter standard (known in some of them as "TCP," standing for "Trace Constitutes Positive," or "zero tolerance laws") for drivers under the age of 21.

In an attempt to severely punish those who show a complete lack of regard for public safety and the local drinking and driving laws, many jurisdictions actually have more serious penalties for drivers whose blood alcohol content is found to be over 0.15-0.20. In cases where a drunk driver has caused an accident resulting in property damage, and injury to another person, especially if they have prior DUI convictions, most states will increase the penalties beyond what they would have been for simply drinking and driving.