An Elgin policeman chases a car clocked at 85 m.p.h. driving in the wrong lane of traffic. Miraculously, no one is killed before the driver eventually stops at a red light. The policeman on the scene reports that the driver is disoriented and clearly impaired. But there is no alcohol in his system.
In Schaumburg, a woman is spotted driving erratically down Golf Road. The woman, described as jittery and hyper, is pulled over for driving under the influence (DUI) and fails her field sobriety test ”horrendously,” according to police. When she is asked to take nine steps, turn and repeat the task, she instead takes 14 steps down and 27 steps back. A Breathalizer test shows that while the woman had been drinking earlier, she is not drunk. In fact, her blood alcohol level falls far below the legal limit.
Another incident finds a northwest suburban teenager behind the wheel after school. Police report the student, ”cutting people off, racing down side streets at 30 m.p.h. over the posted limit and generally acting all whacked out.” He, too, failed his roadside test, but again, there was no alcohol present.
These incidents from the files of local authorities point to the kinds of cases that confound and frustrate law enforcement agencies. Even when arrested, these impaired drivers are often tough to prosecute. They are cases where driving ability is affected not by drinking but by drugs.
The comfortable northwest suburbs, far from the inner city, are hardly immune from drugged drivers. ”When it comes to substance abuse, as far as recognizing the person under the influence, this is a different animal
(compared to alcohol),” said Angelo De Franco, who supervises the Illinois State Police`s North Central Narcotics Task Force for McHenry County. ”It`s against the law to drive under the influence of drugs, but it`s much easier to get away with. It`s very hard to detect.”
In the examples above, for instance, the driver involved in the high speed chase turned out to be having a severe reaction to his prescription drug. The arresting officer said the driver was unaware of the danger he posed on the road and had in fact asked why all the other cars had been driving in his lane.
The horrendous sobriety test was the result of amphetamines. The driver was ”all over the road,” and when arrested had 40-50 pills in her purse. Her Breathalizer results produced a low .04, short of the legal limit of .10, but her behavior indicated there was something obviously wrong with her ability to function on the road.
The impaired teen driver was a surprise to the arresting officers. He had not been drinking at all but had been sniffing butane lighter fluid during class. By the time school was dismissed, the boy was in no condition to drive. While the results can be just as deadly, there are some marked differences between what is known about drunk driving and what is known about drugged driving. Noted De Franco: ”You wonder how many accidents have occurred where unfortunately there has been a death and the individual has really been under the consumption of a drug. It`s a difficult situation.”
Alcohol can be tied to thousands of crashes each year because it is routinely and easily measured. Somewhere from 40 to 70 percent of collisions nationally include alcohol as a crash factor, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington, D.C.
Current data suggests that the drug and driving problem is substantially less than the alcohol and driving problem, but when drugs other than alcohol are involved, detection and conviction grow more difficult.
According to NHTSA spokesman Tim Hurd: ”With alcohol, we`ve had years of research. We have Breathalizers and roadside tests. The courts have hashed these cases out for years. Now there is starting to be a lot of activity with drugged driving.
”But there are 20-30 different drugs that can be in someone`s system;
prescription drugs, over the counter drugs, illegal drugs. Drugs are a lot harder to nail down.”
It is difficult to estimate to what extent these accidents occur in the northwest suburbs, which are criss-crossed by miles of congested highways. Few statistics exist on drugged driving nationally, but evidence suggests that drugs contribute to a safety threat. A limited NHTSA study, presented to Congress in 1988, noted that drugs can be found in from 10 to 22 percent of crash-involved drivers, often in combination with alcohol.
A second report examined commercial truck drivers, who often drive while fatigued to meet time pressures. The vehicles themselves are much more demanding to operate and may carry hazardous materials. As a result, the NHTSA findings called the use of drugs by commercial drivers ”a very different and potentially more serious problem” than concern about the general driving public.
An Insurance Institute for Highway Safety survey indicated that nearly 30 percent of semi-truck drivers tested positive for drugs or alcohol. Stimulants accounted for some 17 percent of drugs detected, with marijuana a close second. Alcohol, which is more commonly found in the general driving public, was found in only 1 percent of the commercial drivers.
Closer to home, the Northwestern University Traffic Institute studied Chicago-area crashes. The data taken from 200 emergency room patients, all of whom were drivers involved in accidents, showed that 54 percent had taken drugs, alcohol or both. Of those, 32 percent were impaired by drugs other than alcohol, primarily marijuana, cocaine to a lesser degree.
The Northwestern survey found that police reports of the accidents contained no references to drugged driving, despite the fact that about 30 people in the study had significant levels of drugs in their systems.
That the police failed to recognize the effects of drugs is not surprising to experts in the field. ”It`s not as clear cut as alcohol,”
explained Ted Anderson, NHTSA research psychologist, from his Washington office. Some drug-impaired drivers look and act very much like alcohol-impaired drivers. Others look and act very differently.
Figures vary widely, but estimates agree that an appreciable segment of the population does use drugs. A review of drug-use studies by the Los Angeles Police Department showed that some 50 million Americans regularly used drugs other than alcohol. Marijuana, cocaine and prescription drugs topped the L.A. list.
A closer look at prescription drug use reveals that during a typical year, more than 60 million prescriptions are written for Valium and related depressants in the United States.
In addition to detection problems and limited research, drugged drivers who are apprehended are hard to convict. Most police officers are not trained in drug recognition or considered drug experts in court.
Picking out the impaired driver is just not that easy, agree law enforcement officials. ”They don`t fall out of their cars for you very often. They don`t bounce off of curbs,” noted Charles Reed, of the Schaumburg police department`s traffic section, who, along with his partner, made 160-170 DUI arrests last year. Reed estimates that 10 percent were drug-related.
Faced with a DUI suspect, the officer must use his discretion whether a roadside field test, a Breathalizer exam, or hospital blood or urine tests are required. Every hospital is equipped with DUI kits for that purpose.
Authorities also stress that drugs can be completely legal, yet still bring DUI charges. Officers have made DUI-drug arrests that could have been avoided if drivers had heeded prescription warning labels. ”Medication, which is usually prescribed by a physician, can still distort your reflexes,”
stressed task force supervisor DeFranco. ”That`s why they warn you of the drug and tell you not to operate a vehicle.”
And medications, even over-the-counter products, can become even more potent in combination with other drugs or with alcohol. Cautioned De Franco,
”Anytime your driving ability is impaired, and you get behind the wheel, you can be arrested for DUI.”
