Intoxicated drivers put themselves and others at risk of life-altering accidents. Encountering a drunk driver on the road in Alabama can be highly stressful and concerning. Knowing how to report drunk drivers can help you protect yourself and others from devastating drunk driving accidents.
Recognizing Signs of Drunk Driving
Drunk drivers may exhibit characteristic behaviors that indicate their impairment. Common signs of drunk driving that you should recognize include:
- Sudden acceleration or braking
- Inability to keep pace with traffic
- Tailgating
- Driving without headlights at night
- Weaving or drifting out of the lane
- Running stop signs or red lights
- Incorrect signaling
- Sudden or wide turns
- Excessive speeding
- Driving well below the speed limit
- Colliding with curbs, vehicles, or other objects
- Driving on the wrong side of the road
- Fleeing the scene of a collision
Steps to Report a Drunk Driver
When you encounter an intoxicated driver on the road, you can protect your and others’ safety by reporting the driver to law enforcement. Tips to follow to report a drunk driver include:
- Pull over safely. Do not attempt to contact police while driving, as distracted driving may put you at risk of causing an accident. Furthermore, do not attempt to follow or chase down a suspected drunk driver, as you might anger the driver and cause them to engage in aggressive driving or road rage.
- Gather information. Before you pull over, note details you will need to provide to the police, including the make, model, color, and license plate number of the driver’s vehicle and a physical description of the drunk driver. Note your location and the direction in which the drunk driver was headed. Also, note the behaviors that cause you to suspect the other driver’s intoxication.
- Call 911 on your cell phone. Do not delay the police response by contacting the police department’s non-emergency number since every minute puts people at risk of a devastating accident. Instead, call 911 or the nearest highway patrol station to contact a dispatcher who can send police officers to detain the suspected drunk driver.
- Stay on the line. Stay on the phone with the 911 dispatcher as long as necessary. The dispatcher will tell you when they no longer need you to stay on the line.
- Follow up if necessary. If you were involved in a collision with a suspected drunk driver, follow up with the local police or highway patrol to obtain records you will need for your drunk driving accident claim, such as a police crash report or arrest and citation records.
Legal Protection and Anonymous Reporting of Drunk Driving
You might worry about retaliation for reporting someone for drunk driving. Fortunately, law enforcement allows individuals to anonymously report intoxicated drivers to the police department. When you call 911, you can remain anonymous by declining to give your name to the dispatcher.
Talk to Our Alabama Drunk Driving Accident Lawyers Now
If you suffered injuries in a traffic accident with a drunk driver, you deserve compensation for your medical attention, lost income, and other losses. Contact Morris, King & Hodge, P.C., today for a free, no-obligation consultation with a drunk driving accident attorney to discuss your legal options for obtaining the financial recovery you need from the drunk driver’s insurance company.
