No-Refusal Weekend: Cheaper to call Uber, a cab

What’s a DWI arrest, subsequent conviction going to cost you these days?

It used to be around 10 grand, what with the attorney, court costs, bail.

With inflation, it’s probably more today. Plus, there are all those pleasant drug/alcohol classes you’ll have to take post-conviction. Drug and alcohol testing for who knows how long, which costs a lot. Increased cost of your automobile insurance.

If you’re real unlucky, you hit another vehicle while driving drunk and cause serious harm to someone, or worse, death. Goodbye, life as you once knew it.

Monday morning, district attorneys from the four alcohol-soaked counties that comprise the Rio Grande Valley — Starr, Hidalgo, Cameron, and Willacy — met inside the Hidalgo County Commissioners Court to announce that this holiday, July 4th, will be like most of the other holidays these days — a No-Refusal Weekend.

For cops, that means they don’t have to listen to a drunk’s explanation of why they were weaving all over the road, doing 80 in a 30, with an open container in the front seat, and that familiar, “Don’t you know who I am?”

Yeah, you’re a drunk who’s going to jail, so goodbye reelection.

There’s also no need for cops to listen to the common answer given when asked how much alcohol the driver has consumed:

“Only two beers.”

For women: “Only two glasses of wine, offither.”

The No-Refusals are relatively new to South Texas.

Not long after Ricardo Rodriguez was elected Hidalgo County DA in 2014 and assumed office in January 2015, he and his fellow DAs in the three neighboring counties got together and formed The Rio Grande Valley District Attorneys Coalition. That gave them a working area to patrol, with the No-Refusals spread across the four counties instead of hit and miss adoption — this county, yes; this county, no.

The first holiday they focused on with regard to DWIs was Labor Day. From there it morphed into the other holidays and even months — all of November and December last year, 2023.

This month, beginning at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, the 4th, the No-Refusal policy kicks in and only ends when Sunday morning rolls around.

So if you’re drunk all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, better to stay home, or call a cab, Uber, until you sober up on Sunday.

During a No-Refusal weekend, those stopped while driving drunk who refuse to provide a breath sample are subject to blood testing at the scene, a nearby jail, or a medical facility. (The cost will be passed on to you.)

Anyone stopped by a cop for suspected drunk driving from Thursday through Saturday, later backed up by the inability to walk a straight line, touch their nose with the help of a flashlight, stand up, remember their name, or where they live, can still refuse a breathalyzer, but then a blood test will be ordered by one of the judges standing by, ready and willing to sign off on a search warrant needed to obtain your blood without consent.

Then it’s all over. The courts have you by the blood draw: .20.

“Two beers. That’s all I had.”

Even a .09 (.08 is the legal limit) is going to get you busted, and hitting that mark doesn’t take a lot.

For an average-sized American man, for example, drinking four beers in two hours may not be enough to raise your blood-alcohol content to .08 percent, but five beers likely will be. (Source: verywellmind.com.)