Cheers. Here’s to looking forward to a new year. Before we go about it, however, perhaps we would do well to reflect upon whether all the things we did over the holidays were worth it. The trips, the reunions of friends and family and the general festivities were most definitely treasured events. But are there other things that occurred that you feel you would do differently, if you were able to do them over again? To those who found themselves driving after they had been drinking I have come to hope that your answer today would be, “Yes.”
Every Christmas and New Year season people approach me – as some did again this year – to ask, “How many drinks can I have without going over the legal limit?” The answer depends on what you hope to achieve, I suppose. For example, ... if you want to achieve a “buzz” without exceeding the adult drunk driving limit of .08, you may already have made your first mistake – believing both objectives can safely be achieved at the same time. If such people were to be honest with themselves, they would realize that what they’re really asking is how many drinks can a person get away with without running the risk of ruining their evening if they are stopped by the police? The answer to that question is easier: None. One reason is simply because, if you are stopped and the officer smells any alcohol on your breath, you stand a very good chance of having your evening ruined whether or not you are, in fact, over the .08 limit. The procedure alone required for you to exonerate yourself can in some situations take all evening or longer and may even include the impounding of your vehicle and a complimentary ride to the station to provide a breath, blood or urine sample. How fun is that? As a result, today when people approach me to ask me such silly things I no longer even try to guess the ”right answer.” Instead, I simply advise them that if they plan on drinking, don’t drive … and if they plan on driving, don’t drink. To me, that’s an easier rule to remember (especially after you have started drinking) than whether, based on your body weight, you can get away with either two glasses of wine or three beers … or was it two beers and three glasses of wine? Anyway, I hope you get the point.
For those who don’t, they perhaps would do well to consider the following true story. Not too many years ago I had the honor of representing a highly educated and otherwise responsible professional who had a daily habit of stopping by his favorite pub on his way home to enjoy literally “one” drink -- and, really, that is all he would ever have. One night after doing so, however, he stopped by a fast food outlet to get some take-out. As he was driving down the last major boulevard on his route home he averted his eyes for but a second to reach for his burrito and failed to see a fourteen year old boy who rode his skateboard directly across his path. His first awareness of the boy’s presence came from the impact that crushed both his windshield and the boy.
My client had not been speeding. He had not been weaving. He had not been driving erratically, irresponsibly or negligently. The truth of the matter was that if there was anyone who might more properly have been accused of such things, it was the youth who had unthinkingly chosen to skateboard his way across a busy boulevard from the middle of the block without looking. From the point of view of “culpability” my client had been involved in nothing more than what most people under other circumstances would have called a mere “accident”. Nevertheless, for him, because he had had a drink, it became an accident that would irretrievably impair the remainder of his life.
The police who arrived at the scene smelled alcohol on my client and saw that a child had been killed. That was all they seemed to need to justify placing my client under arrest for vehicular manslaughter. Then, due to the high bail later set by the court at his arraignment, he sat in county jail for weeks before we were able to have the more serious charges dropped. You see, the police, the district attorney and the child’s mother very much wanted my client to be put in prison for years and for some time none of them were willing to let go of that idea easily. Like the police at the scene, to them the only facts that really mattered were that a child was dead and the driver of the car that killed him had been drinking. Moreover, even when they finally did agree to a dismissal of the more serious charges, the judge was persuaded at sentencing to permit the boy’s mother to vent her emotions directly to my client in open court before releasing him – all the while holding the urn containing her child’s remains. For most of us who were present it was an extremely vitriolic public display of understandable anger that lasted nearly twenty minutes. For my client, however, her humiliating words probably continue to periodically resound in his thoughts to this very day. After my client was released from jail I never again heard from him, and the only thing I later heard about him was that he had quit his job and moved his family to another state.
Perhaps, each of us would do well to bear in mind this man’s experience the next time any of us attends a party from which we know we intend to drive home. We might imagine asking him today how much he thinks a person can drink and still drive safely. Clearly, for him one drink had been far too much. If his story would cause you to agree, perhaps then he could at least take some comfort in knowing that his experience will have served a valuable purpose. Cheers.
© 2005 Clifford C. Nichols, Esq.
Cliff Nichols is an attorney practicing criminal defense/entertainment law in Santa Monica, California. He may be contacted regarding this editorial at either (310) 917-1083, cliff@cliffnicholslaw.com or www.cliffnicholslaw.com and you may join his blog at www.thedailystand.com