Friends don't let friends

Two students arrested for drunken driving tell of horrors, shame of DUI charges

By Jed chernabaeff

Names in this story have been changed to protect anonymity.

Ryan’s day began at 8 a.m. with a 44-ounce mixed drink and ended at 5:51 p.m. when he tried to drive home after drinking all day. Jen’s night began at 10 p.m. with a 12-ounce beer and ended at 2:09 a.m. when she tried to drive to a friend’s house to watch a movie.

Ryan’s and Jen’s days both reached the end of the road with the same result—an arrest for drunken driving.

“I wasn’t thinking when I got behind the wheel,” Ryan said. “Although I know it was wrong for me to try to drive home, I didn’t think it was possible for me to get a DUI.”

“ All I could think about was my mom when I got pulled over,” Jen said. “When I got pulled over I knew that I would get a DUI. I knew my mom would be extremely disappointed.”

According to the California Office of Traffic Safety, 5,442 people in Fresno County were arrested in 2001 for driving under the influence.

Ryan’s story

The morning that Ryan, 23, started drinking still remains fresh in his mind. There was a fraternity mud volleyball tournament hosted 100 yards away from his fraternity house. Ryan planned on drinking that day.

“I set my alarm at 6:30 a.m. so I could get to Albertson’s at 7 a.m. It was a tradition to start drinking before the mud volleyball tournament and play drunk.”

Ryan began his morning of drinking by filling a 44-ounce cup with his favorite mixed drink—rum and Coke. Over the course of the morning, Ryan looked back on how much he drank and he calculated that he went through about three or four additional 44-ounce rum and Coke drinks.

“I figured since the mud volleyball tournament was so close to my house I could afford to drink as much as I want.”

Ryan continued drinking rum and Cokes and played volleyball drunk all morning.

At 1 p.m., Ryan decided to get behind the wheel and drive to his girlfriend’s apartment when he remembered his girlfriend, who was out of town, wanted him to return a movie. He drove to her apartment, picked up the movie and drove back to his house with no problem. He said he doesn’t remember what happened after that.

“I have heard a number of different stories of what happened, but I had already drank too much that day and couldn’t remember.”

A fraternity brother said Ryan decided to try to drive back to his girlfriend’s house a second time.

“A couple of the brothers who were at the house tried to stop him from leaving the parking lot. However, it was too late and he was already driving out of the parking lot,” the fraternity brother said.

Ryan made it back to his girlfriend’s apartment complex safely but ran into trouble when he crashed into a parked car at the complex. Ryan parked his car and went into his girlfriend’s apartment to eat, unaware of the crash.

After eating, he drove back to the fraternity house one more time. He didn’t realize that the impact of the car crash caused his vehicle’s right axle to crack. The axle on Ryan’s vehicle completely broke on the way back to his house. His tire was unable to rotate, but Ryan continued driving noisily on three wheels.

According to Ryan’s Fresno Police Department sobriety report, the officer saw Ryan’s car smoking and noticed that the right wheel would not rotate. Ryan continued to drive down the street on three tires. The officer followed Ryan into his fraternity house’s parking lot and initiated a traffic stop.

The officer went through the normal procedures and noticed that Ryan had a strong odor of alcohol. The officer asked him if he had been drinking and Ryan responded by saying he had “two or three beers, 12-ounces each.”

The officer asked Ryan if he would take a series of field sobriety tests. Ryan said, “Let’s rock and roll.” After Ryan failed all of the tests, the officer took him to a nearby hospital for a blood test. Ryan tested positive at .26 blood alcohol content (BAC), more than three times the California limit for driving legally.

Jen’s Story

Jen planned on going to a local bar the night she was arrested. Like

many people her age, going to a local bar on a Friday night seemed like the normal thing to do.

“We usually go to one or two places on a Friday night,” Jen, 22, said. “Either Fibber McGee’s or Casa Corona; it’s a summer tradition for my friends and I.”

Jen and her friends went to Fibber McGee’s that night to have a few drinks. They arrived at the bar at 10 p.m. and Jen decided she would drink only beer that night so she would not go overboard. Jen drank six beers in six hours; she had a sober driver take her home to avoid a DUI.

“ When we go out, we always make sure that at least one of us stays sober,” she said. “We alternate each week so we don’t get in trouble.”

When Jen got home, she decided to drink a couple of more beers to relax, and then go to bed. But friends who lived a few miles away invited Jen over to their house to watch a movie.

“ The thought did not even cross my mind whether I should drive or not. I had a little buzz going on but I thought that I would be all right to drive.”

Jen got behind the wheel of her Chevy Cavalier and headed for her friends’ house at about 1:45 a.m. Jen did not notice that she backed into a parked car when she was driving out of her apartment complex. Although she barely hit the car, it was enough that a security guard at the complex noticed and followed her down the road.

In Jen’s police report, the security officer said he followed her for a couple of miles and noticed her car was swerving and nearly hit a curb. The security officer turned on his hazard lights, pulled over Jen and waited for the police to come.

Jen said that when she got pulled over she was worried the police would find out she had been drinking. With all those thoughts running through her head, her main worry was that she would get a DUI.

“ All I could think about was how disappointed my mom would be. I started to cry as soon as I got pulled over.”

When the officer approached her vehicle, he noticed Jen was upset. He told her to get out of the car and asked if she had anything to drink that night. Jen told the officer she had drunk two beers. While she was talking, the officer smelled alcohol on her breath.

The officer asked her to take some sobriety tests and demonstrated how to do them. She told the policeman, “I can’t even do these tests when I’m sober.”

She went on to do the tests and failed all three. The officer performed a breath test on her and found she had a BAC of .18, more than twice the legal limit in California.

Ryan and Jen both had to face the financial aftermath of a DUI. Ryan’s DUI cost him $2,718. Jen’s DUI cost her $2,386. The fees that go along with a DUI include court fines, impound fees, community service fees and a first-time-offender class fee.

Although both were originally fined $1,758 for the DUI, both got their fines reduced by $500 after attending a class called “Scared Stiff.” “Scared Stiff” is only available to first-time offenders 25 years old or younger. This program allows the offender to observe the realistic and traumatic consequences of drunken and reckless driving and emphasizes the severity of the offenses. The program does this by showing videos and photos of drunken driving incidents and what happens to the victims. Although Jen has not yet attended the class, Ryan has completed the program.

“ A group of offenders went to the Fresno Coroner’s Office and we went through a series of activities,” Ryan said. “They showed us videos of drunken-driving accidents and the consequences that are involved. The class was facilitated by a couple whose child was a victim of a drunken-driving accident. It really made me realize the severe consequences of what I really could have done.”

On top of court fees, both Jen and Ryan had to pay different fees for their cars being impounded. When Jen’s car was impounded on a Friday, she was able to retrieve it on Monday. The impound fee was $468. Ryan’s impound fee got expensive because police had to keep his car in impound for 30 days to make sure the axle hadn’t been broken in another accident. Ryan’s impound fees added up to $800.

Both had to pay an additional $535 for the first-time-offender classes plus another $125 for community-service fees.

In most DUI cases, the driver has to face an increased auto insurance fee after the incident. Ryan and Jen are not driving so they can avoid the increase in fees by having friends drive them to and from work.

“ A DUI is not only costly in a psychological and emotional standpoint, it also has affected me as far as the pocketbook, big time,” Jen said.

Fresno County Deputy Sheriff Patrick Beggs is no stranger to DUI cases like those of Ryan and Jen. During the two and a half years he has been working for the sheriffs’ department, he has seen DUIs affect people both in his time on the road and while working downtown at the Fresno County Jail.

“ On a regular shift of 12 hours at the jail, I usually see about six or seven people being taken in for DUI arrests,” he said.

While working on patrol in Fresno, Beggs has noticed a few common things with DUI arrests.

“ Before we pull the suspects over, the drivers are noticeably swerving on the road and they are braking erratically. When we walk up to the car and the driver rolls down the window, we can usually tell if the person has be drinking because of the strong odor of alcohol that comes from the person.”

Beggs said that when drivers get pulled over for DUIs, they usually cooperate with the officers because they know they were wrong in driving under the influence. But there are also times when the drivers act irrational toward the officer, thinking they were not at fault for driving drunk.

“ About 10 or 15 percent of the time the suspects will act as if it is not their fault. However, they do not understand that it is our duty to keep the roads safe and prevent any accidents on the road. If we do not do our duty and get these people off the road, the officer can lose their job and paycheck for the next 20 years. That is something that we have to keep in mind. I do not recommend anyone try to drive while under the influence. The risks are just too great.”