Read a hundred Harris County DWI offense reports and you will see the same phrase over and over: "I observed the vehicle fail to maintain a single lane of travel." For years, officers treated a tire touching the white line as an automatic reason to stop a car. In November 2022, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said otherwise. Former Vehicular Crimes prosecutor Brian Foley explains State v. Hardin in this video.
The statute
Texas Transportation Code § 545.060(a) requires an operator on a roadway divided into two or more clearly marked lanes to (1) drive as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane, and (2) not move from the lane unless that movement can be made safely. For decades, intermediate courts split on whether those were two separate offenses — so that any drift out of the lane was a violation — or one offense requiring both a lane departure and an unsafe movement.
What the Court held
In Hardin, the driver's tires briefly crossed onto the line and back. The officer stopped her, and a DWI followed. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that § 545.060(a) creates a single offense: a driver violates the statute only by failing to stay in the lane when that movement is unsafe. Because there was no evidence the momentary drift endangered anyone, there was no traffic violation, no reasonable suspicion, and no lawful basis for the stop. The evidence obtained after the stop was suppressed.
Why it matters in a DWI case
A DWI investigation is only as good as the stop that began it. If the stop was unlawful, everything that followed — the officer's observations, the field sobriety tests, the breath or blood result — is suppressed, and the case is usually dismissed. After Hardin, an officer who stopped a driver solely for touching or briefly crossing a lane line must be able to articulate why the movement was unsafe: another vehicle nearby, a cyclist, a shoulder hazard. In-car video very often shows an empty road at 2 a.m. and nothing unsafe at all.
What officers do now
Since Hardin, reports increasingly add a second justification — speeding, a wide turn, an obscured plate, a signal violation — or describe "weaving within the lane" as a community-caretaking concern. Each of those has its own case law and its own weaknesses. The video is what decides it.
As former Vehicular Crimes Team prosecutors, Brian Foley and Luis Baez trained officers on how to write these reports; they now know exactly where they fail. Learn more about DWI traffic stop suppression, or call or text (713) 703-1718 for a free consultation with our Houston DWI attorneys.