Returning from an office party you laugh out loud as you recall a joke your boss told. The night is clear, the traffic slow and you’ll be pulling into the driveway in less than five minutes.
Suddenly your cheery mood is rattled as you clip the curb rounding the corner. “Good thing there isn’t a…” But your thought trails away as the reflection of a police car suddenly fills your rearview mirror.
Now the pep talk begins:
“OK, I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m not speeding. Just grazed that curb. Easy now. Another mile and I’m home safe,” you say to yourself as convincingly as you can. But you sure are gripping that steering wheel.
Just then the blue lights flash in your mirror, and the next thing you know you’re being asked for your driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance. You dig your license out, and then fumble through the glove box for what seems like forever, aware that you are being intently watched, before finally finding the paperwork. The policeman walks to his car, radios in, verifies you are not driving a stolen vehicle nor wanted for murder in ten states.
Meanwhile you’re playing 20 questions with yourself:
“Did he see me bump that curb? Do I have a tail light out? Was I driving too fast? Too slow? Did I signal before I turned? What? What? What?”
Then he asks you the question that turns your sweaty-palmed anxiety into full-blown panic: “How much did you have to drink tonight?”
“Just a couple of drinks,” you reply. But was it two? Or three? Or more? You can’t recall. But it’s been more than two hours since the last drink and you had a full meal beforehand. You felt fine when you got behind the wheel, fully alert. You know you’re not the least bit intoxicated.
Surprise! First you fail the roadside sobriety tests, then you blow a .06 on the portable breath tester. The police officer now informs you that you are being arrested for driving under the influence. But the rest of what he says spins in kaleidoscopic confusion. You are aware in strange slow motion sequence of feeling the cold metal bracelets slide onto your wrists and can only hear the blood pounding in your ears as you are being led to the police car.
That is the initial emotional discomfort of being arrested for driving under the influence. The financial impact only adds to the misery. And yes, you can be convicted for driving under the influence if you register below a .08 blood alcohol content.
Impaired by medication
As bad as it is getting arrested for driving under the influence, it’s not a worst-case scenario. Let’s place you in the driver’s seats this time.
This time, the driver is approaching an intersection just a few blocks from home. Your spouse, who came to the party with you, is laughing about your boss’s joke. You’re driving because your spouse had too much to drink. You only drank ginger ale. But you took some allergy medication a couple of hours earlier. And didn’t notice the warning “Do not operate heavy machinery.”
The traffic light is yellow. You knows it’s a long yellow. What you don’t know, aren’t not quite alert enough to see in time, is the car speeding towards you from the right. That driver is trying to make a fast left turn before the turn lane light goes red.
Suddenly, in a shuddering, uncomprehending instant, both your worlds explode into shattered glass and twisted metal. There is no music anymore. Just a low, gurgling moan you are shocked to discover comes from you.
You feel pain beyond anything you’ve ever experienced. But the pain tells you you are alive. And for that you are grateful. Until you realize in horror your spouse was not so fortunate.
Your life has just been shattered because of impaired driving. Both drivers under the influence in both scenarios, one by alcohol, the other by over-the-counter medication.
It happens here, and it happens here a lot more than people realize. And there are crashes with injuries and fatalities here in Oak Harbor and we don’t know they are DUI-related because it can take weeks for the toxicology report to come back from the state lab.
It is generally figured for every impaired driver caught, about 100 are not. Considering that we had 180 arrests in Oak Harbor in the year 2000, compared to 135 in 1999, an increase by a third by the way, that’s maybe 18,000 instances of people driving under the influence in our community alone that year. That’s about 50 a day somewhere here in Oak Harbor all year long. It’s like playing Russian roulette on our roads … only the weapon is a car. Sure, the driver isn’t trying to aim it at your car but the driver made two choices: to drink or take drugs and to drive. And the consequences of putting those two choices together are at times fatal.
The impaired Driving Impact Panel of Island County (IDIPIC) is a creative sentencing tool that courts now use for people arrested for DUI or MIP (Minor in Possession). Island County became the 27th of Washington’s 39 counties to offer an impact panel. The panels are held once a month and are open to the public at no charge. Required attendees must pay a fee.
The panels have different speakers each month, that range from people themselves injured in a DUI crash or who have lost a family member to many professionals including the coroner, ER nurses, patrol officers, the sheriff, paramedics, and others.
Parents and their young drivers are especially encouraged to attend. The next panel is Saturday, Jan. 12 at 3 p.m., down the hall from the Oak Harbor Library. For more information, call JoAnn Hellman at 675-8397.
JoAnn Hellmann, coordinator of the Impaired Driving Impact Panel of Island County also known as IDIPIC.
