What is te difference between DUI and DWI ?

Question

What is te difference between DUI and DWI ?

Answer 1

DUI and DWI are the same.  The difference is what your state uses.

Driving While Intoxicated - either drugs or alcohol

Driving Under the Influence - either drug or alcohol

Each state simply uses either of the terms.

Answer 2

Driving Under the Influence- under the influence of a chemical substance (drugs/pharmaceuticals) or a certain amount of alcohol (typically 0.08 BAC or above, but not enough to be DWI).

Driving While Intoxicated- legally drunk. This is generally 0.1 BAC.

Answer 3

Laws are going to be very specific depending on state.  In NY, the law is also specific to time since the standards have chaneged in the last 10 years.

DWI refers to the crime of driving while intoxicated.  There are two subsections of the statute criminalizing DWI; one of the two makes it illegal to drive while your BAC was .10.  This was subsequently lowered to .08.  The other section, regardless of BAC, makes it a crime to drive when you're intoxicated (usually based on evidence indicating your drriving behavior, appearance, speech, the condition of your eyes, etec.)

DUI is not a crime - properly referred to as DWAI (driving while ability impaired, or "impaired" for short) it is however a vehicular infraction.  While vehicular infractions are roughly comparable to a violation undrer the penal law (they are not crimes and therefore don't stay on your record) they do stick on your driving record (as indicated on your DMV abstract) so they do have some of the impact of a criminal conviction.