"As I understand it if one is found inside ones car with the keys while drunk even if asleep one is as guilty of drink driving as if one was actually driving...answers for any jurisdiction would be interesting": in most jurisdictions you can only be guilty of driving offences if you are in fact driving.

@phoog I cannot confirm "most" but most us states and the UK this is not the case.

I looked at the laws of two US states, which is admittedly a minority, and both of them defined the offense using word "operating" and "driving" without any provision such as the UK's "in charge of." The page you link to notes that in California the suspect must actually have caused the car to move through indirect evidence of that is acceptable. I suppose that the authors of that page may actually have counted 26 or more states unlike my sample, but they're not saying either. Perhaps there's a list somewhere.

@phoog It depends on circumstances. I recall a case in Texas (my jurisdiction) where a man had driven his car through a window in a shopping center in the middle of the night. A police officer found him asleep in the car surrounded by empty beer cans, awakened him, and asked,"What are you doing here, sir?" The man replied, "I'm minding my own [expletive] business." The case was appealed after his conviction for DWI; the man's defense was that he could not be convicted of DWI because he was not driving. He lost; the court ruled he must have driven drunk to get there. :-)

I know someone who was convicted (in Canada) of drunk driving after being found asleep in the car. Care and control is the magic phrase, and if you have the keys with you, being asleep and not driving is not a defense.

the problem with just saying "don't have my keys!" is that you can use your phone as a key in many modern cars

I think Kate is wholly correct; I hope Phoog is, too, and I also think the Question is a fine example of the law being an ass. If the officers genuinely believe someone is asleep behind the wheel then clearly, that person is not driving. Keys, key-phones or any equivalent should cut no mustard. Sleeping in the front passenger seat makes that more true. Sleeping on the back seat, doubly so. The law needs to consider also, people sleeping on a third seat row and even behind the seats, in the boot…

I am sure you can sleep in a car if another sober person is sitting or sleeping in the driver seat.

Suggestion: Remove the rear tire and place under axle and lower the car onto the tire to prevent theft and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were not intending to drive. Take the wheel nuts and jack and place in the drivers seat., put your keys in the passenger seat. and sleep in the back seat. If you still get arrested then I am pretty sure that you would have a pretty good case.

@PaŭloEbermann Opinions differ on that one. I, for one, believe that's by far the worst solution.

An interesting variation is if you are homeless and you live in your car, which is becoming more common in the U.S.: I wonder whether you could claim rights to privacy and other protections against searches (like the Fourth Amendment in the U.S. constitution, the Unverletzlichkeit der Wohnung in Germany's Basic Law) because that's your current dwelling.

@Robbie there has been more than one case of a drunk being found asleep at the wheel, with a good chance they fell asleep while driving and this is just where the car came to a stop. Thus, they want to see "well clearly you didn't drive here" type evidence.

@Harper-ReinstateMonica: How about "still parked in the bar parking lot"? Seems good enough to me.

@phoog: Speaking for Belgium and France here, the moment your key is in the ignition (even if the ignition is not turned) changes the game and effectively treats it as driving. There are barely exceptions for campervans (who need to turn the ignition to allow power usage) which require you to anchor the van in a way that you could not possibly drive it even if you wanted to, and even then it's more of a common sense application rather than an explicit legal mention.

@AnthonyVO: Interestingly, choosing to render a vehicle undrivable (i.e. willfully making it so - not via an accident or unknowingly) while on a public road can in and of itself be an offense - just a different one than what the question focuses on. It's the same reason why I can park my car in a public parking spot but I can't put a box of car parts in that parking spot.

@Flater most campervans don't need the ignition on to power accessories in the sleeping area; mine doesn't even need it for the radio (because I rewired that through a switch). I don't drink in mine except on campsites (I don't drink alone, and I only sleep in my van in car parks alone), but when set up for the night the key is out of the ignition and the steering wheel lock is on anyway, for my convenience.

@Harper Thanks and I thought I'd tried to rule out anyone being literally 'at the wheel'. To turn that round and reduce it to absurdity, how will the Court cope with a minibus full of licenced sleepers, one of whom is drunk on the rear seat?

@ChrisH, I've posted a question about the legalities of being drunk in charge of a campervan. It seems like there is the potential for a well-meaning camper to fall of the law in England and Wales.

@Harper-ReinstateMonica for a relatively extreme case: youtube.com/watch?v=nmrNOQym320

@Peter-ReinstateMonica You can claim 4th Amendment rights in your car regardless of if you live in it or not. The 4th Amendment isn't limited to dwellings. Police cannot search your car without either your permission or probable cause. However, if they just saw you walk out of a bar drunk and into the driver's seat of your car, then start driving off, that's certainly probable cause.