FINDING CLOSURE: FOR MOST VICTIMS, IT’S DIFFICULT, IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE

      RID reached out to three different victims of alcohol-impaired drivers to address the issue of closure. What we learned is that attaining closure for them is an extremely difficult process that is never fulfilled.

     Linda Campion’s daughter Kathleen died in March of 1989 when she was hit by an alcohol-impaired driver in Saratoga County. Linda feels the use of the term closure is insulting to many victims she has come to know over the past 25 years. She writes this:

“Closure is a word used by those who hope that if they were ever placed in a similar situation of losing a loved one to an-alcohol-impaired driver, that there will be closures of some kind.”

   Yet, Linda has taken her anger and channeled it into positive action. She and her family founded the Kathleen A. Campion Foundation to spread awareness of the dangers of drinking and driving. She has advocated for and improved victims’ rights in the court of law. While she may never find closure, Linda has turned her loss into the motivating factor for prevention and education so others won’t have to experience the devastation of losing a loved one to drunk driving.

     Jared Spinola lost his companion, Laurie Tavares to a drunk driver on November 27, 2003. Jared suffered through a litany of emotions First, Shock as he couldn’t believe that this amazing person he had come to love was gone and their future together was stolen by a drunk driver. Then depression came as he spent the first couple of months sleeping more than he ever had in his life. The worst emotion for Jared was regret to which he struggles with to this day.

    Jared found some relief from his pain when he attended the trial of the defendant. He viewed him a pathetic human being.  While he could feel bad for him, he can’t forgive him for what the drunk driver took from him and Laurie’s family. The anxiety this tragedy has brought upon Jared is the only lingering emotion that he feels just as strong s he did ten years ago. Jared writes:

    “If there is one piece of advice I could give anyone coping with a sudden, tragic loss of a loved one it would be to seek others who had the same experience. I spent weeks being consoled by friends and family , all of whom had loved ones, but none of them experienced losing someone so close, so sudden and so tragic. I have been through both and I promise there is a HUGE difference! I wasn’t the only one with those regrets. That was the most helpful thing I did that helped me cope and find some closure. You must seek others out who have experienced the same as you, so you may learn that you are not alone.”

   35 years ago, Bill DiKant lost his first wife and two of their children when a drunk driver plowed into their vehicle, killing the drunk driver as well. Bill has been a forerunning advocate to get drunk drivers off the road ever since. His tireless energy spirited message as a motivational speaker has been heard by thousands of convicted drunk drivers covering four counties in the Capital region. He also spreads his message about the hazards of drunk driving to school children. Bill Writes:

    First off it was how to deal with this; I lost my wife and daughter, then I had to decide to take my oldest son off life support, what’s to become of my youngest son? I’m being driven to frustration because of selfishness and greed. I’m thankful that the man (drunk driver) died.  I kept thinking on how should I get even with him? There is no closure on this; it continues to be with me. I re-married and my wife was an EMT with the local ambulance, so I joined to assist the community. I made contact with Remove Intoxicated Drivers and did what I could to help them. I also try to speak to other Victims’ of these domestic terrorists trying to encourage them in dealing with this “Non Violent” crime as stated by the Second Court Circuit.”

     I would like to thank Linda Campion, Jared Spinola and Bill DiKant for sharing their thoughts and experiences in such a poignant manner.  We welcome your comments and feedback.

The recent sentence of probation for a Fort Worth Teenager for killing four people in DWI crash outraged the victims of that tragedy. The defense offered by Ethan Couch’s lawyer was a new term, “affluenza”. They argued that Couch was too spoiled by his rich parents to know right from wrong. It’s a laughable defense but one that the Texas Juvenile Judge Jean Boyd took hook, line and sinker.

To get to this point, the defense lawyers were successful in having Couch tried as juvenile. Juveniles are charged all the time as adults. Boyd showed she was not crime on crime when she sentenced a poor black kid to 10 years for causing the death of a man when he punched him and the victim hit his head on the pavement. So why did the judge buy into this absurd defense?

She hasn’t offered any public explanations, but she did announce that she isn’t seeking another term. On CNN, Defense Attorney Mark Geragos stated that this judge is a well respected judge, not some lune. Well, actions speak loud in this case and the fact that Judge Boyd has decided not seek another term is troubling and only adds to the angst felt by the victims in this case. That this could happened in the Lone Star, law and order state of Texas is proof that this kind of lunacy can occur anywhere.

Changing Attitudes Towards Drunk Driving

You know, when cars first started to appear on roads in the late 1800s, mankind just wasn’t quite ready for such an awe-inspiring invention. We looked at the fantabulous contraptions and thought of just how ripping it would be to be able to putter along in a horseless carriage with a pair of goggles on our face. But what we didn’t understand was that inherent in the design and the power of the infant automobile was danger that had yet to be comprehended. Given enough speed, the car stops being a vehicle and instead becomes a weapon that kills through the power of momentum. The first car-related fatality ever recorded occurred when the scientist Mary Ward was thrown from the passenger seat of a steam powered automobile and was crushed under the wheels, and since that time countless lives have been lost as a result of the unsafe use of cars. Nowhere is this more prominent than in relation to driving while intoxicated.

These days, there is a definite and well deserved stigma associated with drunk driving. After all, those who choose to slide in behind the wheel of a car after kicking back some alcohol are risking more than just their own lives; they could potentially be endangering every other person on the road (and possibly even the people who aren’t on the road). As such, it’s pretty universally agreed that if you chose to drink and drive, you are a terrible, terrible person (unless you’re a Hollywood celebrity, in which case the world can forgive you of almost anything).

However, our current attitude towards drunk driving is a relatively recent development. For starters, drunk driving has been around for much longer than cars have existed. For the greater part of history, alcohol was much cleaner and safer to drink than whatever water happened to be available. As a result, many peoples throughout the ages have basically gone through their daily tasks with a BAC that would get them arrested today. The difference was that the vehicles they drove (if any), were generally animal powered.

That means that not only were they seldom traveling fast enough to cause any significant damage, but also that the animal in question could exercise it’s own initiative and swerve to avoid obstacles (even if its driver was passed out in a drunken stupor while riding).

The first arrest associated with driving an automobile while intoxicated occurred in London, England in 1897. George Smith crashed his vehicle into a building, and faced criminal charges as a result, but as the automobile found its way to the United States, very little was done to regulate its use.

Even once laws prohibiting drunk driving began to surface, the BAC limit was set dangerously high at 0.15%, thus allowing drivers to ingest copious amounts of alcohol without technically qualifying as ‘drunk.’ And even as new laws began to take effect, there was a tendency to view drunk driving accidents as unavoidable.

One startling example includes Margaret Mitchell, celebrated author of the book Gone with the Wind, who was was run over by a drunk driver in 1949 while crossing the street. The driver, who had already had 22 previous arrests for various driving violations, was not generally held accountable. He served a sentence and paid a fine, but the general attitude of the public was that these things happen, and that everyone involved had simply been unlucky.

Unfortunately, this mindset is still occasionally embraced in the modern world. DUIs are viewed as an annoyance by many, with various groups campaigning to reduce DUI penalties or alter the conditions in which an officer may test someone for alcohol.

Still, we’ve come a long way from the time when a person could start up a car and go barreling across the country with no formal license or registration and a jug of moonshine in his hand.

Even though the current BAC limit in the United States is 0.08% (which is still high enough to result in a substantial buzz for the drinker), it’s a step in the right direction from the previous 0.15%. Still, many other countries are taking more drastic steps, increasing penalties and reducing the BAC limit to 0.02% (such as in Sweden). And there are still times when drunk drivers are able to avoid punishment due to other circumstances (such as what happened with Ethan Couch, who only received 10 years probation for causing an alcohol related accident that claimed four lives).

RID (Remove Intoxcated Drivers) a group of volunteers without any money from the alcohol industry turned the tide against DWI in 1980 in New York State, by curbing plea bargains out of alcohol link in DWI arrests. Most states copied RID’s lead by passing similar legislation. RID challenged the all-lawyers members in the NYS codes committee to face a lawsuit on a personal interest conflict on plea bargaining if they chose to kill the RID supported bill. For the first time in 20 years, this bill wasn’t killed. RID was instrumental in turning public opinion against DWI with serious penalties including felony convictions of repeat offenders as well as those who injured or killed their victims.

Still, on the whole, America is beginning to recognize drunk driving for what it is: a dangerous and irresponsible use of deadly machinery. As such, it should be treated with harsher penalties than community service and traffic school. If a person were to begin blindly firing a gun in a public place, you can be sure that the penalties he would face would be more strict than a small fine and suspended gun license, whether or not anyone became injures as a result. But even if we have a ways to go before we can really view drunk driving as the crime that it is, at least we’ve made some progress, because the first step towards eliminating drunk driving, is to stop tolerating it.

Remove Intoxicated Drivers will be hosting a ceremony to rededicate the new Safety Tree which in now in front of the new emergency room entrance at Ellis Hospital on Monday November 25th at 1PM.

The Safety Tree serves as a billboard to notify the community when an DWI fatality occurs in the county of Schenectady by placing a red light bulb on the tree. Last year, there were no alcohol-related deaths in Schenectady County. Hope to see you there.

Teenage Drinking By John Thatcher

Teenage drinking is a worrying trend that seems to have only worsened in recent years. Movies and music videos glamorize alcohol in a way that seems almost irresistible, and social media means that the ability to share exploits online has caused a spike in the number of teenagers who are eager to show off their wild parties and up their social cred through new media. Meanwhile, it is as difficult as ever to monitor, as underage drinkers still utilize the age-old methods of securing alcohol for their parties and wild nights out.

A Dangerous Trend

This inability to monitor is exactly what makes teenage drinking so dangerous. Partying teenagers are able to not only break the law, but it is near impossible to limit the quantity of alcohol that is consumed by a demographic who are not typically renowned for their exemplary self-control. Another knock-on effect of this is on teenage drivers. Adults are unable to step in and say “you’ve had too much to drive,” as they are not even aware that their children are drinking.

According to one survey, as many as 39 percent, almost two-fifths, of high school students admitted to drinking regularly. Furthermore, almost one in ten said that they had driven a car under the influence, and a quarter admitted to having been a passenger in the car of someone who had been drinking. It is difficult to crack down on these sorts of things as many parents are not even aware that their parents are drinking, and these are the sorts of things that teenagers try extra hard to hide.

What Can We Do?

A lot of the problem can be solved through education and proper parenting. Teenagers must want to be safe about the decisions that they are making, and they must realize the dangerous consequences of their actions. Teaching teenagers about the legal, as well as the personal ramifications of alcohol use is incredibly important, but often parents are not even aware. There have been a number of recent examples of parents who allow their children to have parties, even hosting them on occasion, that have involved the use of alcohol. This sort of thing is not only against the law but could result in up to a year of prison time.

Drunk driving is another thing that is not limited to teenagers. But teaching people safe driving habits at a young age could save not only teenagers, but a lot of people further along the road, nipping dangerous driving habits in the bud. A good idea might be to require defensive driving courses to all teenagers so that they have a background knowledge that they can carry forward for the rest of their lives.

Teenage drinking is no party and certainly no joke. If we do not do anything about it, teenagers will continue to suffer the consequences.

John Thatcher is a freelance writer for DefensiveDriving.com

When has the NFL ever passed on commenting when their players get into trouble? The league since under the stewardship of Commissioner Roger Goodell has acted swiftly and always ready to pass judgment on its players that get arrested. Evidently, the NFL has a different standard for the management of their teams.

Recently, two executives for the Denver Broncos, Matt Russell and Tom Heckert were arrested for DUI. In Heckert’s  case, the Broncos tried to keep his June 11th arrest under wraps until the Associated Press blew the cover. NFL spokesman, Greg Aiello is leaving comment in both cases up to the Broncos. The same Broncos that allegedly attempted to sweep the incidents under the rug.

When it comes to marijuana, the NFL has a firm and consistent protocol to deal with players that get caught or test positive for that drug. They are subject to fines or suspensions. In September of 2010, Braylon Edwards was charged with DUI and was permitted to play football the following Sunday. When I contacted an NFL official to see what their policy was for Players caught with a DUI offense, I was told that they don’t have a connection with the State and Federal laws against DUI. The NFL decides their own punishment policies.

DUI is the most prevalent crime NFL players become involved in, yet there is reluctance for Goodell to crack down on this problem, which since taking the mantra of the tough, new sheriff in town when he took the job in 2007, appears out of character. What’s needed to thwart the DUI plague in the NFL is to cut a convicted player from the team on the grounds that the NFL players are held in high esteem by teenagers in the U.S. and cannot appear to accept the crime of drunk driving, one of the main causes of youthful deaths in America.

Doris Aiken, RID President