Photo by Jared Gab

Drinking and driving can lead to DUIs and losing your license, as some students have experienced.

With his mind groggy from too many gin and tonics, Joel Switzer grabbed his car keys and left his designated driver behind, climbed into his 1996 aqua Honda Accord, and drove the five miles to his home, ending a few houses short of his, his car wrapped around an oak tree.

The jolt of the airbag knocked the glasses off his face, leaving him disoriented.

When police showed up, Switzer was too drunk to distinguish his driver’s license from other cards, so he handed his entire wallet to the officer.

“I’m never going to drink and drive again,” he said about his experience. “I can tell you that because it’s just a huge hassle. It changes the way you live.”

Switzer, now a senior from Shawnee, was one of 83 KU students busted and punished for operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol in Lawrence in 2005. He and the other offenders learned that the costs go far beyond the fines, court costs, attorney fees and lost driving privileges. Those costs can include alcohol evaluations and counseling, drastically higher insurance premiums, and a diminished social life and future job prospects.

The long process

Dana Schongar, who tried to follow another car from a fraternity party to his friend’s place at Highpointe Apartments at 6th and Iowa streets, ended up on the opposite side of the road curb asleep at the wheel at 6th and Kasold Drive. He was awakened by a cop tapping on his window.

Schongar, Lenexa senior, had to take a field sobriety test, which he barely remembers besides failing. What usually happens is walking a straight line, standing on one leg, and/or saying the ABC’s backwards.

Police are required to have special training to perform a breathalizer, and neither arresting officer did, so Switzer and Schongar had to go to jail to do it. Switzer’s car was totaled, but Schongar’s was OK. They couldn’t leave their cars in the street, so they had to be towed. The Lawrence Police Department has cars towed by Hillcrest Wrecker and Garage Inc. at the owner’s expense for a fee of $80.

Both men had to wait 20 minutes before taking the breathalizer. J.C. Gilroy, a former policeman and Lawrence lawyer who specializes in operating under the influence cases, said that during that time the driver can’t chew gum, eat or drink to make sure the test results aren’t altered. If an uncertified officer performs the test, the evidence can’t be used in court.

Photo Illustration

The legal limit for people under age 21 who have been drinking and driving is .02. If the blood alcohol content is between .02 and .08, a driver will get an OUI and lose his license for 30 days. If it’s above .08, he will lose his license for one year. For drivers over 21, the blood alcohol content can be up to .08 before they get an OUI.

Switzer was three weeks ahead of his 21st birthday. That means his blood alcohol content had to be under 0.02 to pass the breathalizer test. His was .196. He lost his license for a year.

Driver’s licenses are not taken away by the court; the Driver Control Bureau at the state level handles restricting of licenses. According to the Kansas Department of Transportation Web site, the cost of reinstating a suspended license is $100 for the first offense and goes up for each offense after that.

Schongar escaped without losing his license only because the officer who performed the breathalizer did not show up for his court date, and his lawyer argued that it couldn’t be proven that he was too intoxicated to drive without that officer present.

Both Schongar and Switzer had to spend a night in jail. Bondsmen will bail them out for a charge of 10 percent of the bail, but neither got bailed out. If the driver doesn’t show up in court for his arraignment, or first appearance, where the charges are formally read, a warrant for his arrest is issued, and he loses his bail money, Gilroy said.

Once out of jail, both men could drive until their arraignment dates. During that time, Schongar got a lawyer and Switzer applied for a diversion with the help of his lawyer father.

Diversions usually require an alcohol evaluation at least an eight-hour alcohol information school taught by a counselor, license suspension for a given amount of time depending on the age and blood alcohol content of the person, community service, payment of a fee for the diversion, and generally staying out of trouble with the law for one year.

Switzer had to do all of that except that he had individualized alcohol counseling over a longer period of time rather than eight hours in a class. After that time has passed and all requirements are met, the person can have the OUI taken off his record.

For second-time offenders or more, diversions are almost never given, said Jerry Little, the Lawrence city prosecutor. The fine goes up with each OUI, and the third is considered a felony and the case is moved from Municipal to District Court.

The Monetary Losses

Getting an OUI costs more than a fine, though the costs vary drastically for each person.

Fines range from $500 to $1,000, Lawrence Municipal Court costs are $42, and bail costs vary. If a diversion is granted, the driver pays $150 for an alcohol prevention fund fee that goes toward his alcohol evaluation and at least $80 for the minimum eight-hour session. A lawyer charges between $500 and $750 for a diversion, Gilroy said. He charges $750, but if he has to go to court, it would be $1,000 to $1,500. The diversion fee, about $750, can vary as well, and the towing costs $80.

Schongar said he paid $500 for bail, $1,500 for a lawyer, and $700 for a diversion, but escaped other fees because he did not lose his license. He said he had money saved up from working and could afford the cost without his parents’ help.

“It was a pretty nice chunk of my own change,” he said.

Another chunk of change OUI offenders will pay in the future, when they can start driving again, is a higher insurance premium — if they can get insurance at all. Switzer had to buy a bike and otherwise pay the cost of transportation to work or school He will also eventually face the cost of buying a new car and possible trouble getting future jobs.

Some insurance companies won’t insure drivers who have an OUI, especially those between 16 and 21, Carrie Sink of Charlton Manley Insurance Agency said. Of the nine insurance companies her agency represents, only two, Progressive and Victorias, will insure OUI offenders.

Sink said an OUI could bump a driver’s insurance premium from $1,500 per year to more than $2,000.

Switzer is still feeling the economic impact of his OUI. Without a driver’s license, he had to give up his high-paying waiter job at Carrabba’s Italian Grill in Kansas City. Instead, he now rides his red Trek mountain bike up the street from his apartment in Meadowbrook Apartments, Bob Billings Parkway and Crestline Drive, to his low-paying job at Mr. Goodcents, Bob Billings and Kasold. He said he even rides his bike to bars occasionally.

Although he did get work, he said some applications asked whether he had received an OUI.

Jennifer Pozzuolo of Manpower Inc., a job placement company in Lawrence, said not having a driver’s license can restrict where you work. Because many jobs may require driving machinery, she said some employers won’t hire anyone with a criminal record in the last seven to 10 years.

David Gaston of KU Career Services said getting an OUI can even affect job prospects after college graduation.

He said most companies may still hire offenders as long as they are up front about the OUI on the application. Many employers hire out background checks, he said, so if you don’t declare a diverted OUI, you should hire someone yourself to do a background check and make sure they don’t find it on your record before not including it on the application.

Sales jobs that involve driving are usually not an option because the company may not be able to insure the person.

The Social Impact

Switzer’s OUI has limited his social life.

“I’m still feeling the burn everyday, through almost any activity,” he said a year and three months after his OUI.

Switzer’s new job at Mr. Goodcents gives him less money to spend on dating, which doesn’t happen anyway unless the girl is willing to provide transportation.

He worked his 20 hours of community service in his hometown of Shawnee during the summer.

“What I thought was going to be a huge bummer was actually cool,” he said about working at a drop-off for old furniture, clothing and other items to be resold for profit benefiting the poor. He liked the people he worked with, and it was a humbling experience, he said.

Switzer said he avoids getting drunk when he goes out because his one-year unsupervised probation requires a spotless criminal record. That means no fights, no drugs, no buying alcohol for minors, no drinking and driving, no stealing, or any other minor offense.

“Any time there could be police involved, I want to not be involved,” he said, explaining that he stays away from rowdy house parties most of the time.

Both of Switzer’s roommates have also had past OUIs, so they help him out with rides. Five or six months before he lost his license, his roommate Scott got his back. Switzer drove him around, so now Scott is reciprocating. He said family and friends who in the beginning offered him rides are becoming “annoyed” six months later.

His parents were glad he wasn’t hurt, discouraged him from continuing to drink, and have refused to help him buy another car when his yearlong license suspension ends.

Schongar said that he still goes out and drinks, but never drives afterward. He works as a bartender at Fatso’s, 1016 Massachusetts St., and lives within blocks of downtown.

“I walk wherever I go and if I can’t, I stay there,” he said.

Schongar said since he paid for his OUI by himself, he and his parents are on good terms. They recognize it as a mistake, and he proved that he could handle it on his own.

He said he offers himself as an example of why his friends shouldn’t drink and drive.

The Psychology and Treatment

Although 83 KU students were busted for driving drunk last year, many more did it without ticket or injury, according to Lawrence alcohol counselor Scott Black.

“We know there are about 400 DUIs a month,” Black said. “There should be 10,000. They’ve all done it before. They just got caught now.”

Those who get caught spend time with counselors like Black. A first-time OUI offender with no criminal record usually attends an eight-hour alcohol education class after an alcohol evaluation. Those with alcohol abuse problems face extensive outpatient counseling.

“The alcohol is more important than something else in their life,” he said about such binge drinkers, who are more likely to be males than females partially because of peer pressure.

Black said women get drunk faster because they don’t have as strong a stomach lining, so alcohol goes more quickly to their bloodstream and brain. For men, it takes longer, which can ultimately be worse because they can drink much more.

By the time Switzer took the breathalizer, his blood alcohol was at .196, way over the .08 legal limit. His alcohol counselor told him later he should not have been able to even walk out the door and get in his car to drive home that night, much less be making good decisions about driving.

“I wasn’t concerned about my ability to drive home,” he said, because he’d done it so many times before. He said he tried hard to concentrate and be attentive by turning off the radio and gripping the wheel at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock.

Black said, “They usually think they are fine. That’s 50 percent of the cases I run into.”

Switzer said he hasn’t given up drinking. He tried to be sober for a few weeks, and proudly told his counselor he made it, only to find out true sobriety takes at least six months.

Discouraged by staying home much of the time by himself, and by his friends’ lack of support, he said he decided to go out again, and that he can’t go out without drinking.

“It’s just not me,” he said.

People who binge drink black out, make bad decisions and often get into trouble.

That was what happened to Schongar. He’d been at a Phi Kappa Theta fraternity party drinking beer and hard liquor but lost track of how much. After the party, he was supposed to follow another car to his friend’s place at Highpointe. Somewhere along the way, he got lost and ended up about a mile away, where he had driven up on the curb, and then passed out.

“This is all speculation,” he said. “I don’t remember too much of that night.”

He said he remembered bits and pieces of failing his field sobriety test when the cop got there, and then sobered up in jail waiting to take the breathalizer.

The Danger and Prevention

Switzer survived his wreck with few scratches and Schongar got lucky and avoided hitting anything, but others were not so fortunate. According to the Kansas Department of Transportation, 116 died in alcohol-related automobile accidents in 2004.

When that happens, an OUI offender can end up in prison for years if someone dies because the driver was drunk.

Jerry Little, city prosecutor, said if a drunken driver has an accident that kills someone, he would be charged with either voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

Brian Hunt, one of Lawrence Memorial Hospital’s emergency room doctors, has seen and treated many injuries from drunken driving.

The worst was when he was coroner for Linn County. A young woman drove home from a bar drunk, didn’t make a curve in the road, and her car went airborne over a barbed-wire fence and into a field. In midair, she was thrown from the vehicle and it landed on top of her, killing her instantly.

Hunt said when he stood above her looking down, her face looked almost normal, but when he bent over and looked at her from the side, he saw her head had been squashed to two inches thick and her brain was lying next to her in the grass.

Her death might have been prevented had she been sober or wearing a seat belt.

“Rarely do people who are drinking put on their seat belt,” Hunt said.

Because intoxicated people can’t think clearly when deciding whether to drink and drive, Scott Black, the alcohol counselor, suggests finding a signal that can trigger your memory about the hazards of an OUI. One of his patients put an orange flashing light on her steering wheel that said “DUI” so that when she got in the car, she would see it and remember not to drive.

Adding it all up

Neither Switzer nor Schongar have stopped drinking, but both say they have found a middle ground: drink, but don’t drive. In the end, drunken driving offenders suffer losses far beyond the expected ticket and court costs.

Switzer and Schongar learned the lesson that all of it — the wrecked cars, the $2,000 to $4,000 in fines, lawyer costs, diversion fees and towing, the limited social life, the higher insurance premiums, the night in jail — could have been avoided by finding a sober ride home.

— Edited by Frank Tankard