Tiger Woods' DUI Arrest-No Alcohol...And He's Not Alone
Posted Friday, June 2, 2017 by Andrew Charles Huff
Most of us have watched Tiger Woods’ enormously successful golf career over the years, as he confidently marched down the course, smashing records and winning events in front of fans and massive television audiences.
But the legendary golfer ran smack into a roadblock when video just released showed the world’s former No. 1 golfer in a DUI investigation struggling to stand, walk and speak coherently as police officers looked on. In video from Florida’s Jupiter Police Department, Woods stumbles through field sobriety tests, wobbles on the side of the road and at times appears confused about officers’ commands. He was soon placed under arrest for Driving Under the Influence.
Woods told officers he did not drink, but took several prescription medications, according to a police report. He took a Breathalyzer test, registering 0.000 on it both times, and a urine test, records show. And with that, Woods has become the most high-profile example of a worrisome nationwide trend: Drugged driving is on the rise, and for the first time ever, people involved in fatal crashes are more likely to have drugs than alcohol in their systems.
A report published this April by the Governors Highway Safety Association and the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility found that both illegal and prescription drugs are found in the bodies of fatally-injured drivers—a good source of data, since they are tested more often than drivers in non-fatal crashes—about 43 percent of the time. Alcohol above the legal limit, meanwhile, was found in just 37 percent of the drivers.
The number of people driving under the influence of prescription drugs has increased in recent years. A just-released study found that 20 percent of drivers had used a prescription drug in the past two days—mostly sedatives, antidepressants, and painkillers. We are also seeing a rise in marijuana use in a DUI-context and is slowly becoming the most common drugs used by drivers.
