Ghost Ridin the Delorean...

Doc Brown gets 1.22 Jigga what?!?!'s



I saw this and orange juice came out of my nose- swear to God,

P

DUI and the Public drunk

Sometimes it is easy to go out, knock back a couple in a responsible manner and then lay off for a while so you can feel ok about driving home.

It is the same basic plan a lot of my peers used to go by when I lived in TX. Cabs, and public transportation weren't all that readily available in Plano. If you have ever been there you will understand- it is a huge suburb, but taxi services are Dallas based, and they aren't readily available. We would usually have a few beers, tempered with some food (usually pizza, nachos, or wings) then head out of the bar for the short drive home.

Until the night my roomate and I got busted.

We had stopped off to grab a quick bite and a few games of Golden Tee, over a few after work beers on a Thursday night. We split a decent sized pizza while we played, and then headed out to the jeep for the short trip home. I have been drunk on numerous occasions, and I am comfortable saying, this wasn't one of them. I can say the same of my roomate whom I have known, and drank with for over 13yrs since we were fraternity brothers in college.

We drove on a main route, no weaving, no speeding. Police followed us onto our street and we got pulled over 5 houses down from our own- on suspicion of "drag racing" (we were in a 4 cylinder Jeep Wrangler, and there weren't any other cars around us)

the officers first question was if we had anything to drink that evening- after that it was pretty mechanical- My buddy refused the breathalizer (based on some bad advice he was given by a street lawyer years before), he was arrested and placed in the patrol car before I could even blink. I was then asked to step out of the vehicle. The officers asked if I had anything to drink- I thought they were going to ask me to drive the jeep home, so I said "yes, I had a few drinks, but will not be driving" I was then zip tied, and placed in a second patrol car so they could charge me with public drunkeness. I was not offered a sobriety test, or a breathalizer. In TX and officer makes the determination of your degree of "drunkeness" no tests required. 1 month until my 30th birthday I was being detained for the first time in my life, and it wasn't even for one of the times I had been boldly shit-faced...

I was upset.

We ended up staying overnight in borrowed orange pajamas from the Hotel Plano- I was released the following morning with a summary offense charge, and a court date. I appeared in court 3 months later to challenge, but the officers recording of me saying (in perfect intonation: no slurring) that "I had a few drinks" was enough to uphold my citation- I was fined $200 some odd dollars + fees.

My Roomate got shipped to the county jail the following morning. I bonded him out as soon as possible, but it took several hours for them to "process" him in, and then back out of their system. He then became entangled in the arduous, and expensive legal process required to avoid a jail sentence.

Plano TX hates DUI offenders- here is the dance

step 1- hire a lawyer- pay out $$$
step 2- go to court- attorney will engage in the legal wrangling to try and get a "deal"
step 3- "the deal" in this case = Probation, loss of license 1yr- (do NOT refuse breathalizer), DWI "education" courses, victim impact sessions, fines, community service hours, and then continuing "surcharge" payments to the state of roughly $100 per month for 3 years after reinstatement. After all is said and done, a couple of beers and a pizza cost my friend nearly 10k.

In the months after the incident I spoke to a waitress from the bar we had been in. She told me that the officer who arrested us made a habit of hanging out in the area, and that our story was very similar to others she had heard. We had been "trapped".

There are those who would say "good- you got what you deserved", but for those people I have some perspective- Most restaurants that serve alcohol have a parking lot. If you go out to dinner and have a drink or two with dinner then drive home you are every bit as guilty as we were. Think about that next time you order a nice red wine to compliment your steak.

It has been a few years now, and I have reflected on what happened- here is what I got out of it.

We broke the law. There isn't any way around it. There can't be a varience for the degree to which we broke the law. In my years as a bar tender I had seen people pound beers all night yet never appear "impaired", I have also seen grown men get absolutly wasted after a few glasses of wine on an empty stomach. The fact is you just can't drink and drive without a degree of risk. The best solution to that risk is to not take it. Can I be pissed at the officer for "stalking" the parking lot? sure, but in reality wasn't he just doing his job? If you are looking for criminals, is it not a good idea to look where crimes are being commited?

Lesson learned: It isn't worth it.

I still like to go out for drinks, but I live in Chicago now- we have public transport readily available, and that is all I use. If I lived somewhere like Plano again- I would need to plan accordingly. No excuses.

I was still pissed about my "not really drunk in public" fine, even though it seemed like a small penance compared to what my roomate went through.

I got a tip from the bail bondsman when I went to pick up the bond to get my friend out: If a police officer asks if you have had anything to drink- be polite, follow any instructions you are given, but keep your mouth shut. Don't nod, don't shake your head- don't speak.
You might still get arrested, but it is hard to charge you without evidence.