DUI, DWI, OWI, OVI: What the Names Mean

No. DUI, DWI, OWI and OVI are abbreviations that courts, agencies, lawyers and reporters use as shorthand. None of them is a national legal standard. The offense itself is created by a state statute, and the statute's own words decide what the prosecution has to prove, which vehicles are covered and where the conduct has to happen.

The label can also differ from the text within the same law. Texas's Penal Code, for example, titles its offense "Driving While Intoxicated," yet the operative sentence provides that a person commits an offense "if the person is intoxicated while operating a motor vehicle in a public place." The heading says "driving" and the text says "operating."

For that reason, the abbreviation printed on a ticket or a docket says less than the statute it refers to. The elements in the statute are what a court applies.

A license case can proceed separately from the criminal case, and it has its own forum and trigger. Pennsylvania offers an example from agency guidance rather than a statute. PennDOT's driver's manual states that if a driving privilege is going to be suspended, revoked and/or disqualified, a written notice will be mailed listing the date the sanction begins. The manual says the sanction may be appealed in the Court of Common Pleas (Civil Division) in the county of residence, within a period measured from the mailing date of the Department's notice. It adds that restoration requirements must be satisfied in addition to serving the sanction.

Texas's license chapter shows how licensing law can look past labels. It defines an "alcohol-related or drug-related enforcement contact" to include a license suspension, disqualification or prohibition order under the laws of Texas or another state that results from a conviction for an offense prohibiting operation of a motor vehicle or watercraft while intoxicated, under the influence of alcohol, or under the influence of a controlled substance. The definition also reaches orders that result from a test refusal or from a specimen analysis.

The criminal case is the separate proceeding in which the named offense is actually charged.

Texas Penal Code section headings use the words "Driving While Intoxicated." The offense covers a person who is intoxicated while operating a motor vehicle in a public place. Under the same section, the grade of the offense can change according to what is shown at trial, such as an open container of alcohol in the person's immediate possession, a specimen analysis at or above a level the section sets, or operation in a school crossing zone while the reduced speed limit applies.

Texas also looks to substance as well as name when it counts earlier offenses. For enhancement purposes, its Penal Code defines an "offense relating to the operating of a motor vehicle while intoxicated" to include several Texas offenses and "an offense under the laws of another state that prohibit the operation of a motor vehicle while intoxicated." That definition is phrased by what the other state's law prohibits, not by the abbreviation that state uses. Whether a particular out-of-state record fits that definition is a question for a Texas lawyer.

Arizona's statute is headed "Driving or actual physical control while under the influence." It makes it unlawful to drive or be in actual physical control of a vehicle in Arizona under any of several listed circumstances, so the offense is not limited to a moving car.

The statute also separates its drug provisions. A person using a drug as prescribed by a licensed medical practitioner who is authorized to prescribe it is not guilty under the drug-or-metabolite alternative. Separately, the statute provides that being entitled to use a drug under Arizona law is not a defense to the impairment alternative. The two rules apply to different alternatives and cannot be substituted for each other.

• Being under the influence of intoxicating liquor, any drug, a vapor releasing substance containing a toxic substance, or a combination, if the person is impaired to the slightest degree.
• Having an alcohol concentration at or above a level the statute sets, within a period the statute sets after driving or actual physical control, from alcohol consumed before or during that time.
• Having a drug defined in a cross-referenced Arizona section, or its metabolite, in the person's body.
• Having an alcohol concentration at or above a lower level the statute sets while in a commercial motor vehicle that requires a commercial driver license, or while operating a vehicle for hire or providing transportation network services as a transportation network company driver.

Virginia's statute, for example, makes it unlawful to "drive or operate any motor vehicle, engine or train" under any of several alternatives: an alcohol concentration at or above a set level as shown by a chemical test, being under the influence of alcohol, being under the influence of a narcotic or other self-administered intoxicant to a degree that impairs safe operation, the combined influence of alcohol and drugs to that degree, or a blood concentration at or above set levels of cocaine, methamphetamine, phencyclidine or MDMA. The statute provides that a charge alleging a violation supports a conviction under any of those alternatives, and that "motor vehicle" includes mopeds while operated on the public highways of Virginia.

New York's Vehicle and Traffic Law contains a per se section titled "Operating a motor vehicle after having consumed alcohol," which applies only to drivers below an age the section specifies and only within a concentration range it defines. A person who violates it and is not charged under the main offense section the excerpt cross-references is referred to the department for action. The section states that such a finding "is not a judgment of conviction for a crime or any other offense."

OWI and OVI are also used as names for impaired-driving charges, and both are built around the word "operating" rather than "driving." None of the statutes discussed here uses either abbreviation, so no state's definition of them is described here, and nothing about their meaning in a particular state is assumed.

The same principle applies to them as to DUI and DWI: whatever the label, the content comes from a state statute. Questions a lawyer licensed in the relevant state can answer include which statute the charge cites, which alternative within that statute the prosecution relies on, whether a separate license proceeding exists and where it is heard, and how that state treats an earlier offense that carried a different name somewhere else.

Deadlines, limits and penalty ranges are set by each state’s statutes, so this page does not state them. Each state page shows them with the official source and the date they were verified — or says plainly that a figure has not been confirmed yet.