August 2001

Have FUN and Volunteer
Again this summer, we will be operating the Designated Driver Booths at the Virginia Wine Festival on August 18 & 19. This is a great opportunity to help make our roadways safer and have lots of fun at the same time. We will need about 60 volunteers to help staff the booths that give free soda to those festival attendees who do not chose to taste the wine. In exchange for helping out for a few hours, you get free admission to the festival. Please call the chapter office at 703-352-3944 right away to get on the list.

Getting Drunks Off the Roads
(MADD Volunteer Dot Green recently rode along on a DWI Saturation Patrol in Alexandria. Here are some of her observations.)

At about 9 pm, I enter the world of PC. Politically correct? No, the world of probable cause. We are looking for drivers who call attention to themselves as potential drunk drivers. Weaving across lines, speeding, failing to fully stop at stop signs, etc., are all examples of probable cause. Until 4 am, I will be riding along with an Alexandria Police Officer in an unmarked car looking to remove hazards from the road. It is the night of St. Patrick's day -- a day to celebrate, but on the dark side, also a day for drinking and driving.

Yipes, the van is going fast. Blue lights go on and the van stops. The driver passes the field sobriety tests fairly well and passes the AlcoSensor with percentage points to spare. Maybe this driver learned something...he seems to listen when the infinitely polite officers explain that they know from his BAC numbers that he had more than "just one beer a long time ago." They also explain, taking into account his body weight, where his BAC would be with more beers. I think that his thank you to a higher being was that he was glad that he had not had the extra beers and gotten caught -- but on the bright side, that sense of self-preservation may keep him from becoming a drunk-driving statistic in the future.

There goes another car -- driving across the double yellow lines, straddling the dotted line and drag racing with a buddy -- with a marked police car behind him. We watch as another officer on the detail puts on the red and blue lights and starts the process of checking out the driver. I was pleased to see the driver later in booking lined up to take a Breathalyser.

The young woman had been crying for several hours. I can only speculate that her tears are of self-pity, not tears of gratitude that she did not kill or injure someone. Her friend, who posted the bond for her, is out in the lobby waiting. Booking is very busy, so they are all waiting. It will be several hours before the drunk driver is released. As the drunk is now sniveling, I wonder about her friend. Her friend, a perfectly sober person (she was able to drive her friend's car to the jail since she had had nothing to drink) had been riding in the car with a potential killer. It could have been a friendship for life -- a short life.

The Breathalyser protocol certainly weighs everything in favor of the drunk. After the machine operator logs on, there is a twenty minute wait so that any alcohol still in the drunk's mouth will not give a false high reading. This also means that if the drunk coughs up phlegm, the 20 minute period starts again. One drunk, about 10 minutes into the wait, coughs up phlegm, so after an explanation that continued coughing is the same as refusal to take the test, the 20 minutes starts all over again.

The drunk is sitting in a chair and is so intoxicated that his head periodically flops back and taps the cement wall. I get a head-ache watching him. Gratitude for the officers is very much in the forefront of my mind. It is now after 4 am, the DUI patrol detail is officially over, the 20 minute wait has been restarted and there are two more people waiting for the Breathalyser. It will be well after 5 am before the officers get to go home. One, a very proud and involved father, expects that at 7:30 am his toddler will come bounding into his bedroom: "Daddy, Daddy let's play!" Day after day the drunks get treated with respect and deal with a system that gives the drunks every benefit of the doubt. The tired officers go home to rest so that they can continue to protect us.

This night, unlike most others where I have ridden along with the Alexandria Police, the officer that I was with did not arrest a drunk driver. However, it was a successful evening. All of the officers returned unscathed. There were no car crashes, no injuries, no innocent victims killed. Eight drunks were removed from the roads. Yet, for all the success, this is not a one time event. The evening will be played over -- time and time again -- punctuated by evenings when innocent people are injured or killed.

In Northern Virginia, the law enforcement community understands the dangers posed by drunk drivers. Sobriety checkpoints, saturation patrols, and just keen observation by officers have helped keep down the number of tragedies caused by drunk driving. But these men and women --who protect us all -- need our help. Please let your elected representatives know that you appreciate the police who are out arresting the drunk drivers and that you demand stricter laws, enhanced enforcement, and tougher sentences for violators. For the police to protect us, we need to support them.

MADD NoVA Victim Services
MADD Northern Virginia offers many free services to victims of drunk driving crashes. If you are a victim or know someone who is a victim of this violent crime, please contact our office at (703) 352-3944. We have Victim Advocates who will respond to a victim's call within 24 hours. The office also offers the following free services and materials for victims of drunk driving crashes:

• Literature to help a victim cope emotionally and to guide him/her through the criminal justice system.
• Information about drunk driving laws and victim rights in Virginia.
• Introduction to other families whose victimization was similar to the victims.
• Victim Support Groups.
• Information and assistance in preparing Victim Impact Statements for court.
• Information and assistance in applying for Criminal Victim Compensation benefits to cover expenses related to the crash.
• Information about professional counselors who work with victims of crashes.
• Information about civil attorneys specializing in wrongful death and personal injury cases.
• Accompaniment to court.

• find that the telling of their story lightens their personal pain which promotes their own healing process;
• experience something positive from a previously devastating event;
• believe that through telling their stories they may be preventing some other family from having to suffer a similar victimization.