Categories

ESPN radio talk show host Harry Teinowitz pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor DUI charge, telling the judge that his arrest “was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Teinowitz, 50, was arrested in Skokie in early March and charged with DUI after another motorist called 911 and reported to police that he saw a vehicle swerving dangerously across lanes along Kolmar Avenue.

The driver continued following Teinowitz, calling in his location to authorities, until Skokie police pulled over the car.

After police said he failed a field sobriety test, Teinowitz was cited for DUI and improper lane usage. Police said that breathalyzer results showed that his blood-alcohol content was 0.131, above the 0.08 legal limit.

On Thursday, Teinowitz, who is a co-host of the popular ESPN radio program “The Afternoon Saloon” on WMVP-AM 1000, pleaded guilty at the Skokie branch of Cook County Circuit Court to one count of misdemeanor DUI, while remaining charges were dropped.

Teinowitz was given 18 months conditional discharge and sentenced to 240 hours of community service. He must also pay court fees and fines totaling $2,175 and take part in a victim impact panel on the dangers of drinking and driving.

His attorney told the court that Teinowitz has completed an in-service treatment program. Judge Lauren Gottainer Edidin on Wednesday told Teinowitz to keep attending Alcohol Anonymous meetings and said that the court would have “zero tolerance” if he is arrested for DUI in the future.

The judge also told Teinowitz that his arrest could be considered a blessing in disguise.

“Sometimes fate steps in and takes a hand to save us,” she said.

“It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me,” Teinowitz responded.

Source

The owner of a Huntington Beach bar under investigation by state officials because of the high number of drunk-driving cases linked to the establishment said he cannot be blamed for what his customers do.

“What happens on the highway, we cannot control,” said Ron Newman, owner of Baja Sharkeez. “We don’t serve anybody that’s overly intoxicated. I can’t tell if you had two or three drinks. If you’re not obviously intoxicated, we can’t tell. If someone is obviously intoxicated, we cut them off.”

Newman said police don’t like his bar because of its popularity and often station officers outside it.

Huntington Beach police complained to state officials about the bar after records showed that 72 Sharkeez customers were arrested for drinking and driving during a 22-month period. “I believe the ownership and management of the establishment represent, at best, an indifferent attitude toward public safety,” the city’s police chief wrote.

Source

GALESBURG — Area residents who have too many drinks on New Year’s Eve will have a safe option for getting home this year.

A community-based initiative known as Alert Cab will be offering free cab rides to tipsy residents from any participating Galesburg bar or restaurant on Dec. 31 from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.

The program has been ongoing for “at least 15 years, if not more,” said Adam Vitale, general manager of G&M Distributors, a company that distributes beer, wine, spirits and other refreshments.

Its main goal is to curb drunk driving on a day that has become synonymous with partying and drinking.

“People who misuse the product we distribute don’t do us any good,” Vitale said.

The free cab rides will take residents from the bar to their homes in Galesburg. Out-of-town residents may call the phone number, although they will have to begin paying for the cab ride once it leaves city limits.

The program is sponsored by the G&M, Dennis Twitty State Farm Insurance, United Cab Company and Galesburg Broadcasting. The cab company can be contacted at 341-6161.

Use of the program has become rampant in recent years, Vitale said, in part because the price of DUI fines has skyrocketed with the passage of new tough-on-crime laws.

On average, a DUI conviction costs $16,100 in Illinois, according to the Secretary of State’s office. The figure includes costs related to increased insurance premiums, legal fees, court costs and income loss.

Knox County Sheriff David Clague also attributed stiffer DUI laws to the decrease in drunk drivers his department sees during the holiday.

“It seems like the number of DUIs has declined,” he said, although the numbers haven’t dropped “as much as I’d like.”

For New Year’s Eve, the sheriff’s department will operate a few checkpoints throughout the area during the evening hours Friday.

In Galesburg, bars will be open for an extra hour, closing at 3 a.m. Saturday instead of 2 a.m. The Police Department will increase the number of on-duty officers well above what a normal shift would call for in response to the busy holiday, said Capt. Lindsey May.

Besides patrolling the roads for drunk drivers, police officers will be making more frequent checks at the town’s taverns while talking to bar owners and occupants to halt disturbances.

And the holiday could be hectic, especially considering two other factors that could also bring more patrons into local establishments: the weather outlook and the night of the week that New Year’s Eve lands on.

For one, temperatures could reach 50 degrees on New Year’s Eve, giving more residents an incentive to go out that night. Additionally, the holiday lands on the weekend, another reason for residents to visit local bars.

All of these factors could mean a very busy night for cab drivers with Alert Cab.

“It’s very important to us,” Vitale said. “Our goal is to keep everyone safe on New Year’s Eve.”

Source

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A St. Louis Cardinals television broadcaster will serve two years of probation after pleading guilty to driving under the influence last summer in suburban St. Louis.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 36-year-old Dan McLaughlin’s attorney says his client, whose case was resolved Wednesday, has completed community service. The attorney says McLaughlin realizes he made a mistake and takes responsibility for it.

McLaughlin was arrested Aug. 16 after an officer responding to a report of an erratic driver stopped his vehicle on Interstate 64 in Chesterfield.

Police say McLaughlin refused a breathalyzer test.

McLaughlin is the primary play-by-play announcer for Cardinals games on Fox Sports Midwest.

Source

DUI lawyers are an inevitable part of a society where driving under the influence has become such a common crime. The consequences for driving while intoxicated are hefty, leaving DUI lawyers with a big job.

Clients that have been caught driving under the influence need representation in the face of potential license loss, vehicle possession, and even jail time. Not to mention the long term implications when seeking employment or completing other applications.

However, a good DUI attorney will be able to avoid as many of those ramifications as possible. His or her responsibility will be solely to the client and will involve offering legal advice and explications, standing up for the rights of client, and representing the client in court. The lawyer should be well-versed in DUI legislation and experienced in the field.

Work in this field is stressful and takes a motivated, professional person. While the lawyer may think poorly of the client’s choice to drive while intoxicated, professionalism prevents that opinion from being expressed or acted upon. The lawyer must leave those personal biases behind and devote his or her efforts towards protecting the client.

Lawyers for clients with DUIs may have to research the case and prepare witnesses or other relevant parties for court. It will be important to gather all of the facts and piece together the strongest case for the client. Someone guilty of driving while intoxicated may not accurately remember the details of the incident, so it is important to investigate and develop an understanding of what exactly happened.

Finally, DUI lawyers need to know how to market themselves and create an approachable and available appearance to potential clients. They should be welcoming and professional, offering complete reassurance.

Need a DUI Lawyer?

Source

A controversial addiction expert has told MPs he is “ashamed to be a New Zealander” because of the Government’s “backwards decision” not to lower the drink-driving limit.

Professor Doug Selman, of Christchurch, yesterday hit back at claims he is “anti-alcohol”, before telling the Transport Select Committee that the Government was condoning drunk driving by keeping the blood-alcohol limit at 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood (0.08).

A series of submissions, including Selman’s, attacked the 0.08 limit and recommended it be lowered to 0.05.

“It makes me start to feel ashamed to be a New Zealander. It makes me feel like I’m part of a country that’s pretty backward in its thinking and, moreover, controlled by alcohol forces,” he told the MPs.

Selman, a spokesman for Alcohol Action New Zealand, said his submission was “an impassioned plea to do the right thing and end legal drunk driving now”.

He objected to being labelled “the anti-alcohol lobby”. “Being anti-alcohol would be almost about as ridiculous as being anti-water.

read more…

Walgreen Co. Chief Financial Officer Wade Miquelon was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving last month, his second such arrest in a little more than a year, according to court records.

Miquelon, 45, of Winnetka, was stopped in a Jeep at 10:03 p.m. on Sept. 25 in the 200 block of Sheridan Road in Kenilworth. He was ticketed for having a tail light out, driving with a suspended license, DUI and driving without headlights on (while his windshield wipers were going).

He refused a Breathalyzer test and failed all field sobriety tests, according to Kenilworth Police Lt. Phil Brunell and court records. A hearing is scheduled for Friday at the District courthouse in Skokie.

In Sept. 2009, he was stopped at 12:51 a.m. at Green Bay Road and Glencoe Drive  in Glencoe and ticketed for speeding, improper lane usage, DUI and having alcohol in his system. On May 7, he accepted a one-year supervision for the latter offense and paid a $1,150 fine. According to the ticket, Miquelon blew 0.126.

“We’re aware of it,” said Walgreen spokesman Michael Polzin. “It’s a personal matter, and we don’t comment on personal matters.”

Dave Druker, a spokesman for the Illinois Secretary of State’s office, said that Miquelon will lose his license for three years, effective Nov. 10, due to the second arrest. By law, time was added to the suspension for refusing the Breathalyzer.

Source

Studies show that driving while texting is more dangerous than driving under the influence. Our laws and penalties don’t reflect that.

“Border collie jill surveying the view from atop the sand dune.” Those were the last words of Malibu plastic surgeon Frank Ryan, best known for “reconstructing” reality TV star Heidi Montag. It’s not quite up there with “Et tu, Brute?” Yet it seemed important enough for him to text it just before driving off a cliff in August. Jill survived.

We don’t know what the message was in a 2007 accident involving the sender and her four fellow New York high school cheerleaders. But it probably wasn’t worth slamming head-on into a truck, killing them all. And the 2008 Chatsworth train collision, in which 25 people died and more than 100 were injured, was officially attributed to the engineer of the Metrolink commuter train being distracted by text messaging.

Unfortunately, laws intended to deal with the problem of texting while driving, a major topic at the Transportation Department’s Distracted Driving Summit on Sept. 21, reflect vital misunderstandings about why a cellphone combined with a moving vehicle can be so deadly and how to deal with it.

Texting while driving can be more dangerous than driving while swigging Jack Daniels, according to studies. In a 2009 survey, Car and Driver magazine tested two of its staffers under a variety of conditions. It found that on average, driving at 70 mph, one man braking suddenly while legally drunk (0.08 blood alcohol content) traveled 4 feet beyond his baseline performance. But reading an e-mail while driving sober, he traveled 36 feet beyond the baseline result and 70 feet while sending a text. In the worst case while texting, he traveled 319 feet before stopping.

Source

Repeat impaired-driving offenders have subtle deficits in their decision-making abilities that may not be detected through conventional tests, says a new study.

Researchers assessed 34 male, second-time DUI (driving under the influence) offenders enrolled in a rehabilitation program and a control group of 31 healthy, non-offenders matched for age, education, and alcohol use.

All the participants underwent psychiatric assessments ad conventional neuropsychological testing, including the the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), to help assess personality patterns.

The IGT, Kasar explained, is used in many studies investigating alcohol problems because it simulates real-life decision-making.

“We found that second-time DUI offenders have a poorer performance on the IGT test than their matched counterparts,” Muzaffer Kasar, a resident in psychiatry at the Bakirkoy Research and Training Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, said in a journal news release.

In contrast, he and colleague David J. Nutt, a professor of psychiatry at Imperial College London in the U.K., found no differences between the repeat DUI offenders and the control group on conventional neuropsychological testing and temperament and character testing (TCI) scores.

“These findings suggest that second-time DUI offenders do not suffer from motor impulsiveness — that is, a lack of impulse control in ‘here and now’ situations,” Nutt said. Instead, he explained, “they suffer from cognitive impulsiveness, which depends on associating negative experiences with possible negative consequences.”

In other words, “there are brain reasons for why people make poor choices regarding DUI,” he added.

The researchers urged that such testing be expanded for people convicted of DUI, which they noted accounted for 40 percent of the fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States. In addition, they said, 33 percent of the DUI drivers were recidivists, or repeat offenders.

Source

In a weird epiphany of sorts, I was knocked back to my senses when I had a crazy car accident last week. Everyone with common sense knows that drinking and driving just do not mesh, yet many alcohol drinkers ignore this. In my case, the law of averages finally caught up with me. I had numerous occasions where I would reach my home at wee hours of the morning not knowing how I got home drunk. Being a normal folk with no driver, I drive myself to wine tasting events, parties and everywhere all the time. I dodged a few dozen potential accidents, but this time I was hit. It was more like I hit something…. I rammed into my defenseless garage. Minor bruises aside, it was my car and garage that were badly damaged, and my ego that was more hurting than the physical side. Well…. the pocket hurts very much too.

This incident made me curious about existing Philippine laws on drunk driving. Do we have a law on Driving Under Influence of alcohol or drugs (more on the former) or DUI? We hear this all the time in the US with big name celebrities like Mel Gibson, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, and numerous professional athletes caught with DUI charges. A strict DUI law is a protection to both the drivers of the vehicles, and more so for the unprepared public. Drunk driving is just courting accident to happen. There is actually no real acceptable alcohol level for safe driving. Technically, alcohol creeps in on the nerve cells of the brain by interrupting the link between nerve cells and all other cells, affecting the nerve pathways (defined as a bundle of nerve fibers following a path to the brain that communicates with other parts of the body)—it suppresses the activities of excitatory nerve pathways and increases the activities of inhibitory nerve pathways. In layman’s term it just means alcohol intake will slow down the overall reflex responses and negate any control we have over our body.

Outdated drunk driving law

The only law we have in the country concerning drunk driving is in the motherhood Republic Act 4136, also known as the Land Transportation and Traffic Code. This was enacted into law way back during the time of former President GMA’s father, President Diosdado Macapagal in 1964. In my thorough search for provisions on drunk driving in this extremely long Republic Law, I chanced upon only two sections which mentioned driving while under the influence of liquor.

Read this full article here.