Articles Posted in Driving Under the Influence

Court rulings and new laws in other states don’t have an immediate impact on California DUI laws and the outcome of arrests for DUI in Los Angeles.  But it’s always interesting to take a look and see how other states are dealing with challenges and updates to DUI law.TennLegislature-DUI-law-debate

•    The Tennessee State Legislature has taken the extraordinary step of going into special session to amend a law that they passed that raised the BAC limit for 18 to 20-year olds to 0.08 percent.  The legislature had reasoned that since the new penalties for drivers in that age group were the same as for drivers over 21, the BAC limits should be the same. But that put them in conflict with federal law, which mandates a 0.02 limit for those under 21. Since the federal government threatened to withhold federal highway construction funds from the state, the state legislature had to hold a special session (at a cost of at least $75,000) to amend its law and bring it into conformity with federal law. (The federal government refused to waive an October 1st deadline to allow the state to amend the law at its next scheduled legislative session in January 2017.)

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Drivers arrested for DUI in Los Angeles often leave a very visible trail of damage in their wake: wrecked vehicles (theirs and/or others’), downed utility poles or traffic signals, broken windows in storefronts. But sometimes the damage spreads a lot further.DUI-fire

According to a story in the August 29th Los Angeles Times, 44-year-old Rene Ilene Hogan was driving under the influence when she started a fire that set ablaze 450-plus acres of grass and forest in Calaveras County.

Hogan was driving a 2002 Kia Rio but didn’t realize that her rear tire was flat. She continued traveling until the tire wore down to the wheel rim, causing sparks to fly. Some of the sparks hit the very dry grass along the highway, setting off several fires. Her Kia eventually caught fire as well, but Hogan kept driving, apparently oblivious to the damage she had caused and her own peril.

Motorists who saw her car on fire tried to alert her, but Hogan didn’t notice them. Finally, one car pulled in front of her, forcing her to stop. The driver and nearby residents managed to pull Hogan from the car before she suffered any burns. Police later charged her with driving under the influence of a narcotic analgesic and cannabis, as well as driving on a suspended license.

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Intoxicated drivers often make bad decisions that draw police officers’ attention and leave the drivers vulnerable to arrest on a charge of DUI in Los Angeles. But California drivers aren’t the only ones making mistakes, as these arrest stories from around the country clearly demonstrate.shocking-los-angeles-DUI-stories

In Madison, Wisconsin, a 42-year-old woman decided that she was in the mood for a beer. Only problem was she opened the can while sitting in a car and right in front of the officer who had pulled her over on suspicion of DUI. When the woman refused to get out of the car and continued drinking, the officer had to call reinforcements to pry the unidentified driver out of her car. She faces charges of reckless driving and driving while intoxicated.

In Connecticut, two people were driving their vehicles with flat tires and probably hoping that police didn’t notice. Police in South Windsor arrested 33-year-old Eric Schneider after they received reports that a vehicle in the area was riding on a bare rim. Schneider had apparently been traveling with a flat for so long that he wore the tire away. He’s facing DUI charges.

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For some people, one charge of DUI in Los Angeles is enough to make them resolve they will never again drive under the influence. They never want to go through the humiliating experience of arrest, a bond hearing and a court trial again. There are others, however, who never seem to get the message no matter how many times they go to court, pay fines or spend time in jail. los-angeles-dui-repeat-offenses

KDVR in Denver reports on one Colorado man who has somehow escaped jail time despite the fact that he’s had seven DUI arrests and five convictions. Albert Torres’ most recent DUI arrest came last November, when he ran a red light and nearly hit a police car. In July, a judge accepted the 45-year-old’s plea deal, which will require him to serve a year on work release and three years’ probation.

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While it’s probably little consolation to someone convicted of a DUI in Los Angeles, California is apparently far down on the list when it comes to states with the strictest DUI enforcement. 23-in-DUIs-California

WalletHub, a personal finance website, looked at several factors in each state’s DUI laws to identify the strictest and most lenient states for DUI offenses. The factors included minimum jail times for convictions, minimum fines and the look-back period for previous DUIs.

WalletHub identified Arizona as the toughest state when it came to criminal penalties for DUI. The other states rounding out the top 10 included Georgia, Alaska, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Connecticut, West Virginia and Utah. Maryland was the most lenient state; others (in ascending order) included Mississippi, Maine, Arkansas (tied), Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota and Michigan.

California ranked right in the middle at number 23 on the list.

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When police come upon an accident involving a DUI in Los Angeles, they may sometimes find that all the vehicle’s occupants have exited the car. That scenario can make it more difficult for the officers to figure out who was actually driving at the time of the crash. Thinking to confuse police (or maybe because they are confused themselves), the car’s occupants claim that someone else was behind the wheel.jerry-springer-los-angeles-DUI-defense

But when Bernard Michael Drivdahl of Benson, Minnesota, stated that another driver was responsible for the destruction his car left behind, the police were pretty sure they could discount his story. For one thing, the 59-year-old Drivdahl was apparently alone when they picked him up. In addition, Drivdahl said that the person driving the vehicle was Jerry Springer.

TwinCities.com reports that on May 29th, an officer who suspected Drivdahl of driving under the influence began chasing his vehicle through the town. Speeds reached 70 miles per hour during the pursuit. Drivdahl eventually drove through several front lawns, crashed into a parked pickup and then hit not one but two homes. The damage could have been worse, however; the car broke a gas line in one home.
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Police officers, prosecutors and judges can get discouraged when they’re trying to reduce the number of DUIs in Los Angeles. Some people never seem to get the message about the dangers they pose to themselves and other people.
bee-sting-DUI
But Noah Elkins of Laurel County, Kentucky, had the message about the dangers of DUI driving brought home in a stinging way—literally. On Tuesday, July 26th, Elkins and a passenger, 35-year-old Priscilla Simpson, were driving around looking for a place to swim and cool off. Since they were reportedly under the influence of several drugs, including Suboxone, neurotin and Klonopin, Elkins apparently had trouble controlling the car. The vehicle crashed into an electric pole, which fell over and took out a beehive.

The swarm of bees was not happy about the disruption to their day. According to TV station WKYT, they went after Elkins and Simpson (who was wearing a bikini bathing suit at the time). A local resident, Gary Lee Anderson, saw them running up his driveway, where they grabbed the hose and tried to spray water on themselves to get the bees off of them.
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Police who arrest drivers arrested for DUIs in Los Angeles sometimes observe the motorist engaging in additional risky behaviors behind the wheel: talking on a cell phone or texting, for example. Now you can add another item to the list of dangerous distractions: Pokémon Go.pokemon-go-DUI-accidents

A young driver in Port Orchard, Washington, was apparently drinking, driving and playing Pokémon Go on the evening of Saturday, August 6th.  Witnesses called police when they observed her driving erratically while using her mobile phone.

The officers tracked the unnamed driver to a nearby waterfront park (a favorite spot for Pokémon Go players). When they questioned her, they found she was underage and under the influence, and she was driving on a suspended license. They arrested her on both charges.

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The properties damaged by DUIs in Los Angeles can include everything from vehicles to homes to businesses and retail establishments. Sometimes a DUI driver will take out a neighborhood landmark, destroying a bar or a restaurant that’s a favorite with locals. DUI-Fire-EdsChickenandCrabs

Residents and regular visitors to Dewey Beach, Delaware, are mourning the destruction of Ed’s Chicken and Crabs by a DUI driver. A 2013 Mini Cooper driven by Michelle Small, 36, of Wyoming, Delaware, slammed into the popular summer take out restaurant, hitting a propane gas tank and igniting a fire that soon engulfed the building.

A video camera on a nearby building recorded the entire incident, which occurred around 2 a.m. The video shows Small’s vehicle traveling southbound at a high rate of speed along Route 1 (the Coastal Highway). The car crosses over the median strip, goes about a half block the wrong way in the north lanes and then crashes into the restaurant.   Continue reading

Accidents involving drivers DUI in Los Angeles can snarl highways and city streets, resulting in backups that prevent motorists from reaching their destinations for hours. Involve a mass transit system like BART in a DUI crash, and the potential for transportation headaches gets even larger.BART-DUI

Opara Maurice Green crashed through a crossing gate and ended up running his 2006 Toyota truck onto BART’s tracks in West Oakland around 7:40 p.m. on Wednesday, July 20th. Green was lucky; the operator of a San Francisco-bound BART train was able to stop before hitting the truck. (Fortunately, no passengers suffered injuries in the unscheduled rapid stop.)

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