Andy Slater wasn’t stumbling.
He wasn’t slurring his words or falling down or giving any hint that, amid the revelry of his friends’ wedding reception, he might have overdone the Jack and Cokes.
So when it came time to return to the hotel on that May day in DeKalb in 2003, Slater, 26 at the time, confidently hopped behind the wheel of his Jeep, taking the bride’s sister and her boyfriend as passengers to give directions.
That decision, so casual at the time, would haunt him for life.
Less than a mile down the road, Slater pulled into an intersection that he thought was a four-way stop. It wasn’t. His car was struck broadside.
Slater woke up in the emergency room, suffering from a severe loss of blood. Tests showed his blood alcohol content was .13, above the state’s legal limit of .08.
Two days later he learned one of his passengers — Lindsay Murphy, the bride’s 20-year-old sister and maid of honor — had died of hematoma.
“All it would have taken is two sentences: ‘I’ve been drinking. Can someone else drive?'” said Slater, now 31 and living in Uptown, his voice catching at the memory. “But the fact is that I took my friend’s only sister away on what should have been the happiest day of her life, and I have no one to blame but myself.”
Countless examples exist to discourage people from drunken driving — thousands die in alcohol-related crashes every year, cautionary tales such as Lindsay Lohan’s recent arrest are mainstays in the news and laws against drunken driving grow consistently tougher. But even people aware of the risks often simply don’t know when they’ve drunk too much to drive.
“No one gets behind the wheel of a car saying, ‘I’m pretty convinced I can’t handle it; I’m probably going to end up wiping somebody out,’ ” said David Malham, a grief therapist with the Illinois chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
There are 1.4 million people arrested each year for driving under the influence, and last year 15,121 people nationwide were killed by drivers with a blood alcohol content at or above .08, according to statistics released last week by the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. The 580 fatal alcohol-related crashes in Illinois in 2005 — the most recent statewide breakdown available — represented a record low for the state, but the backlash against drunken driving continues. Last week, a Deerfield couple was convicted for allowing minors to drink alcohol at their home on a night two of the teens died in an alcohol-related car crash.
Hoping to make a deeper dent in drunken driving, Illinois lawmakers this spring approved legislation that would require all first-time DUI offenders to drive only in cars equipped with ignition interlock devices, which test the driver’s breath and won’t let the car start if any alcohol is detected. The bill, a tougher version of a current law that requires the devices for people who have two or more DUI incidents within 10 years, awaits Gov. Blagojevich’s signature.
Charlene Chapman, executive director of Schaumburg-based Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists, said her group hopes that eventually all new cars will be equipped with steering-wheel technology that will lock the car’s ignition if the wheel senses any alcohol in the skin. The technology is still being developed, but is expected to be licensed and available in the next six months, said patent holder Dennis Bellehumeur, a Florida real estate agent who runs the company Arrive Alive Technologies. It would cost about $1,000 to retrofit an existing passenger car with the special wheel, he said.
“If we can’t change people’s behavior, we can change technology to keep them from driving,” Chapman said. Eighty percent of drunken driving fatalities are caused by first-time offenders, she said.
Pat Larson, director of victim services for Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists, said most of the drunken driving offenders she meets “honestly believed that they were just fine to drive.”
“Most drunk drivers at .08 don’t sway, stagger, slur or have bloodshot eyes,” Larson said. “Some people have such high tolerance to alcohol that the people with them don’t have a clue that they’re impaired.”
But even people who don’t feel or look intoxicated can be dangerous on the road, she said. Just a couple of drinks can slow reflexes and alter judgment of speed and how to control the vehicle.
“It’s one thing to keep your car going down the white lines, and another thing to deal with emergency situations, like if the light changes when you don’t expect it,” said Robert Pandina, director of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
People driving with a .08 blood alcohol content in their system are four to six times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident than people who are sober, Pandina said. Even at a blood alcohol level of .05, people are at an increased risk, he said.
Slater, who said he hasn’t had a drop to drink since the crash that killed his friend’s sister, believes people shouldn’t drive if they’re planning on having more than a beer or two.
“It’s just not worth the risk,” said Slater, who works as a computer server engineer at a Chicago hospital.
Slater, whose previous driving record consisted of a single speeding ticket, has lived with the consequences.
Before the crash, he had been planning to go to graduate school to study international policy and Mandarin. After the crash, he was charged with reckless homicide, spent four months in prison, paid $10,000 in fines, had his license revoked, suffered three years of depression and has been on probation for the last four years. He speaks of his experience at victim impact panels, which all DUI offenders are required to attend as part of their penalty.
But Slater said the truly devastating consequence of the crash was not his own hardship but the life that was cut short.
Lindsay Murphy, a Kishwaukee College student and softball player, died two days after her 20th birthday.
“You go from one of the best days of your life, giving your daughter away, to one of the worst days of your life,” said Lindsay’s father, David Murphy, of Sycamore, adding that he has forgiven Slater. “It’s just a tragic way to learn not to drink and drive.”
Since the crash, Slater said he hasn’t spoken to the bride and groom whose wedding he attended because he can’t bear to face them.
“For a long time I wished I was the one who died. In a just world, I would have been,” he said. “I can’t say ‘I’m sorry’ enough for what I did. She’s with me every day.”
How much is too much?
Even if you’re not vomiting on the floor or telling your friends how very much you love them, you could be at risk of getting a DUI or at greater risk of a traffic crash.
How do you know if you’ve drunk too much to drive?
Everybody’s ability to process alcohol is different, so there’s no easy answer. But here are some guidelines. aelejalderuiz@tribune.com
Aside from the obvious signs — staggering, slurring, inappropriate comments — it can be hard to tell, said David Malham, grief therapist with MADD Illinois. As they drink, people lose some critical thinking capacity, so they’re usually unfit to evaluate themselves, he said. The best thing is for a trusted friend to watch not just for signs of intoxication, but for the quantity of alcohol being consumed, Malham said.
What should you look for to tell if someone is too drunk to drive?
Aside from the obvious signs — staggering, slurring, inappropriate comments — it can be hard to tell, said David Malham, grief therapist with MADD Illinois. As they drink, people lose some critical thinking capacity, so they’re usually unfit to evaluate themselves, he said. The best thing is for a trusted friend to watch not just for signs of intoxication, but for the quantity of alcohol being consumed, Malham said.
How much alcohol does it take to get to the legal limit of .08?
The number of drinks it takes to get legally drunk depends on a host of factors, including gender, weight, food consumption and time frame.
For example, a 175-pound man can get to a blood alcohol content of .08 if he drinks three beers within an hour, while a 135-pound woman would reach that limit after two beers within an hour, said Robert Pandina, director of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University.
Pandina said he got to those numbers using an “alco-calculator” based on a formula used to estimate BAC. The calculator is available from the Center for less than a dollar (you can have one mailed to you), but Web sites also allow you to calculate BAC online. Try the calculator from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration at getfit.samhsa.gov.
As a general rule for drinking and driving: “After three, pass the key,” said Charlene Chapman, executive director of the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists.
Is it OK to drive if you let some time lapse after drinking?
Yes, but you have to let enough time lapse. It takes about two hours for the alcohol from a single drink to be processed out of your system, Pandina said. A single drink is considered one 12-ounce beer, one 5-ounce glass of wine or one shot (1.5 ounces) of 80-proof liquor.
The key is to pace yourself, Pandina said. A single drink typically raises a person’s BAC by .03, but the liver removes alcohol from your system at a fixed rate of only .015 per hour. So …
>>If you have three drinks in an hour, and drink nothing the next hour, your BAC at the end of that last hour will be like you’d had two and a half drinks.
>>But if you have one drink per hour for three hours, your BAC will be like you’ve had just one-and-a-half by the time you finish.
Drinkers also should be aware that, on average, their BAC hits its peak 40 to 45 minutes after their last drink, Pandina said.
Does drinking on a full stomach lower your BAC?
Having food in your stomach does slow the absorption of alcohol into your bloodstream, Pandina said.
“But that’s a dangerous game to play,” he added, because people’s systems are different.
Is it worthwhile to give yourself a sobriety test?
Sobriety tests like the ones given by police won’t necessarily show if someone’s too impaired to drive.
“One of the problems with field sobriety tests for really seasoned drinkers is that … they could walk toe-to-toe on a tightrope,” Malham said. Besides, he said, driving a car takes more alertness and better reflexes than walking toe-to-toe.
One field test tends to be more telling than the others in revealing intoxication, Pandina said: Balance on one foot with your eyes closed. If you can’t do it, hand over the keys.
“You’re requiring yourself to remove many of the cues for balance,” Pandina said. “That puts a lot of stress on your system.”
Are personal breathalyzers a good idea?
A big problem with portable breathalyzers is that some aren’t accurate, said David Hanson, professor emeritus of sociology at the State University of New York at Potsdam, who has been conducting research on drinking patterns for the past 40 years.
“If the thing is underestimating, it could give people a false sense of security,” he said.
Alcohol breath testers, available on sites such as alcotesters.com, cost from $30 for novelty breathalyzer key chains to $150 for more sophisticated models.
Even police-administered portable breathalyzer tests cannot be used as evidence in trials because they’re not as reliable as results from larger breathalyzer equipment found at police stations (which are admissible in trial), said Michael O’Meara, a Chicago criminal defense attorney who has handles DUI cases.
– – –
THE LIMIT
.08
Under Illinois law, a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .08 or more is considered too impaired to drive. People driving with a .08 BAC are four to six times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident than people who are sober, said Robert Pandina, director of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University.
———-
aelejalderuiz@tribune.com
