5 Myths About DUI Crashes and Injuries in Tennessee

A DUI arrest after a crash is a very different case from an ordinary traffic stop. Someone may have been hurt, the car may have ended up on private land, blood may have been drawn at a hospital, or a child may have been riding with you. Each of those facts leads to beliefs that spread quickly and are often wrong, sometimes in your favor and sometimes badly against you. Here are five of the most common ones, and what Tennessee law actually says.

Myth 1: If I had been drinking and someone got hurt, I am automatically guilty of vehicular assault.

The State must prove more than impairment and an injury: it must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that your intoxication was a legal cause of that injury. The charge also requires a serious bodily injury and reckless conduct, and being too impaired to see the danger is no excuse on the recklessness part. The jury decides causation, and the bar is lower than people expect, because your impairment does not have to be the only cause, or even the main one. If the other driver was also careless, that usually does not excuse an impaired driver; it breaks the chain only when it was something you could not reasonably have anticipated. Juries may also infer causation when an impaired driver makes an unexplained mistake, like crossing into the other lane. A less serious injury does not automatically make it just a DUI either, because felony assault and reckless endangerment charges remain available.

Myth 2: A crash on my own land or a private lot cannot be a DUI.

Private property is not a safe harbor under Tennessee's DUI law. The law reaches public roads, the grounds of shopping centers, trailer parks and apartment complexes, and any other place the public generally uses. Tennessee appeals courts have upheld convictions in a gated subdivision, a members-only neighborhood with no-trespassing signs, a private club's parking lot and a gated apartment complex. Farm fields, pastures and driveways used only by the owner have not been squarely decided, and that is uncertainty, not protection. Even if you were found somewhere truly private, the State can rely on impaired driving on a public road to get there, and that proof can be circumstantial. Location is still a real part of the charge that the State must prove, and a jury or judge decides it. Reckless endangerment has no location rule, and if your driving put someone else in real danger of death or serious injury, it can be charged as a felony.

Myth 3: After a crash, they can only test my blood if I agree to it.

Your consent is only one of three ways police can get your blood after a crash: they can also use a search warrant, or rely on a genuine emergency that left no time to get one. Tennessee law requires officers to test a driver after a crash that injures or kills someone else if they have probable cause of impairment, and any injury counts, not just a serious one. Warrants are easy to get, and once police have one, medical staff may use reasonable force. Blood the hospital drew for your own treatment can usually be obtained and used without any warrant for the draw. Refusing does not stop a warrant, and it brings its own license loss, which is longer when someone was seriously hurt or killed. Tennessee courts have thrown out blood taken without a warrant, real consent or a true emergency, but whether a particular draw can be challenged depends entirely on how and when it was taken.

Myth 4: Having my kid in the car only adds a little extra time.

A child under eighteen in the car changes a DUI in several ways at once, even on a first offense and even if the child is unhurt. Tennessee adds a mandatory thirty days in jail on top of the usual minimum, a $1,000 fine on top of the regular fine unless you are found indigent, and an ignition interlock if you get a restricted license. Officers must also get a breath or blood test, with a warrant if necessary, and refusing will not stop it. If the child is seriously hurt, the case becomes a felony handled like vehicular assault; if the child dies, it becomes a more serious felony handled like vehicular homicide. Child neglect and endangerment charges can also be brought alongside the DUI, and carelessly placing a child eight or younger in danger of harm has been a serious felony since July 2024. Those child neglect and endangerment convictions are served in full.

Myth 5: A DUI crash with an injury cannot be fought, so there is no point calling a lawyer.

An arrest is an accusation, not a verdict. The officer needed only enough facts to believe an offense had probably occurred, but to convict you the State must prove every part of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt, and you are presumed innocent. In an injury case, that includes proving your impairment actually caused the injury, and that is a genuine question for the jury. Arguing that the crash would have happened anyway is possible, but Tennessee appeals courts have not accepted it as a reason to overturn a conviction, and where it has helped at trial, it was backed by crash-reconstruction evidence, not just the driver's word. Even if a jury rejects causation, you can usually still be convicted of DUI, and sometimes of felony charges based on reckless driving that do not require proof that your impairment caused the injury. Tennessee also offers no soft landing: there is no diversion program for DUI, and a DUI conviction can never be cleared from your record. That is exactly why the early decisions in a case like this matter so much.

Crash cases turn on details: how the collision happened, where the car was, how and when any blood was taken, and what the medical records show. None of this means any particular case will be won, but these questions stay open until they are decided. Talk to a defense lawyer before you talk to anyone else about what happened.

About the Author

David G. Ridings is a Nashville criminal defense attorney, former police officer, and former prosecutor with nearly 40 years of experience in the Tennessee justice system. Known as “DrJudge,” he educates hundreds of thousands about their rights during police encounters.

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