Our Virginia DUI Lawyers Explain When a Rising BAC Defense May Reduce Your Charges or Provide Reasonable Doubt
You may not realize that your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) could elevate long after you stop consuming alcohol. This can be important if you’re pulled over and are charged with DUI/DWI in Virginia. Our Manassas DUI lawyers at The Wilson Law Firm will assess the evidence in your case and determine whether a rising BAC defense is an effective strategy in your criminal case and work toward a better outcome. 
What Is Rising BAC in Virginia?
Blood alcohol level is the truest measure of how intoxicated you are, because it measures the actual amount of alcohol in your bloodstream, not just how many drinks you consumed or when.
Your rising BAC refers to the fact that your blood alcohol content continues to increase long after you’ve had your last drink. Your BAC goes up because it takes time for alcohol to metabolize in your bloodstream, and will keep rising until it reaches its highest level.
Under Virginia Code § 18.2-266, you can be found guilty of drunk driving if your BAC is 0.08 percent or higher, or if you’re operating a motor vehicle while impaired due to your alcohol consumption—even if your BAC is less than 0.08 percent. However, depending on how quickly your BAC rose you may not have been intoxicated when the police arrested you for DUI.
Factors That Affect How Long It Takes for Your BAC to Elevate
It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours for your BAC to rise to its maximum level. How fast and for how long it will increase depends on many factors:
- Whether you consumed beer, wine, or hard liquor—different alcohol compounds metabolize more quickly than others.
- Whether your stomach was empty or full when you started drinking.
- How quickly you consumed the drinks.
- Your gender—because of their different physiology, men tend to metabolize alcohol more slowly than women.
- Your personal tolerance for alcohol.
- Whether any medications you were taking affected your rising BAC.
- Whether you were tired or sick while drinking.
When Could the Rising BAC Defense Help in Your Virginia DUI Case?
In our experience at The Wilson Law Firm, a rising BAC defense is often most helpful if your blood alcohol level was:
- Lower than 0.08 percent if you took a breathalyzer test when the police pulled you over.
- Near 0.08 percent when you were given a BAC test at the police station.
The rising BAC defense can also be useful if you’re charged with a more severe DUI charge because your BAC was close to 0.15 or 0.20 percent.
If any of these situations apply to your case, our DUI/DWI criminal defense lawyers may be able to argue that you weren’t impaired when you were stopped because your BAC was still rising. We have a network of expert witnesses we can use to prove this. With this defense, we may be able to get the charges against you dismissed or raise enough doubt about the prosecution’s case that they offer you a favorable plea bargain where the charges are reduced to a less serious offense.