Articles Posted in DUI and other Crimes

Driving under the influence with a child under the age of 14 can result in a punishment enhancement and may also result in child endangerment charges. But there are other potential consequences to this offense of which most people are unaware. Among those potential consequences is being added to the Child Abuse Central Index (CACI). Most people are unaware of the database unless they find themselves added to it.

First an explanation of what CACI is. CACI is a database maintained by the California Department of Justice. It contains records of individuals who have been reported and investigated for child abuse or neglect in the state of California. The CACI is a confidential database but can be shared with certain agencies such as law enforcement, child protective services, and organizations that conduct background checks for positions involving children. Even most volunteer organizations that include children as clients will check the CACI data base on an individual who applies to volunteer with that organization.  It is important to note that being added to the CACI database does not require a conviction of child abuse but only a substantiated report of “severe neglect” of the child.

A conviction for driving under the influence with a child under the age of 14, and especially if that conviction included a child endangerment offense, may result in that driver being added to the CACI database. Why? Because driving under the influence with a child in the car may be considered severe neglect. The term “severe neglect” is defined by the law under which the CACI database is regulated as a situation where a person having the care and custody of a child willfully causes or allows the person or health of the child to be put in a situation where that child’s health is endangered. (Penal Code Section 11165.2, subd. (a).)  Driving while under the influence with a child in the car is considered criminal negligence, even if the driver believes he or she is able to drive safely while under the influence and is therefore willful conduct. That is, if the conduct was reckless or deviated from what an objective and reasonable person would consider safe making the conduct is criminally negligent and therefore willful under the eyes of the law.

Summer is almost here and after a year of lockdowns, we are all pretty eager to get outside and enjoy summer activities! Don’t ruin your summer fun with an arrest.

Here is a rundown on the most popular activities which you should keep in mind as you pull out the sunscreen and head to the great outdoors:

• Bicycling under the influence. Yes DUI laws apply when you are on your bicycle. California Vehicle Code section 21200.5 makes it unlawful to operate a bicycle on a highway. A highway isn’t what you might think it is. The California statue defines a “highway” as “a way or place of whatever nature, publicly maintained and open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel.  Highway includes street.” (Vehicle Code §360.) A bike path on the beach or elsewhere or a publically maintained mountain bike trail easily fit within the definition. Even a sidewalk will fit within the parameters of the definition.

After an afternoon barbeque party, Dave gets in his car and heads home.  As he turns the corner on his street, he hits the side of a car parked on the corner. Dave had more than a few beers at the party and he figures that if he sticks around, he stands a good chance of getting a DUI. So, Dave quickly backs up, and speeds down the street to his home where he parks his car in the driveway and runs inside. His neighbor Millicent heard the collision and peeked through her front window. She saw Dave backing up and thought she recognized him (and his car) as a neighbor down the street. When she sees the damage to the parked car, she calls the police and reports the incident. She tells the dispatcher that she believes the driver of the car was a neighbor who lives down her street and she describes the neighbor’s car.

The police arrive and spot the car described by the neighbor parked in Dave’s driveway. They feel the hood of the parked car and find that it is still warm. They see front-end damage consistent with the damage they noted on the car parked down the street. The officers knock on Dave’s front door and Dave’s wife, Susan, answers. By this time, Dave was upstairs vigorously rinsing his mouth out with mouthwash. On his way upstairs, he had briefed his wife on what happened and told her, “If the police come, don’t tell them I am here.”

The police ask Dave’s wife whose car is parked in the driveway. She tells them it belongs to her and her husband and in an effort to protect her husband, she tells them she just brought it home from grocery shopping. When questioned, she tells them the damage they observed on the front end is from a previous fender bender. Based on Millicent’s report, the police don’t buy Susan’s story. They ask if her husband is home. She tells them he is not. The police remain suspicious. As the police question Susan, the police hear footsteps upstairs.

Perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that the United States has among the highest rates of death from drunk driving in the world, with 31 percent of all fatal accidents being attributed to alcohol impairment. You might be surprised to learn that our neighbor to the north, Canada, has an even higher rate at 34 percent and South Africa’s rate is even higher at 58%–that represents 25.1 deaths caused by impaired drivers for every 100,000 people in South Africa. These three countries, according to the Global Status Report on Road Safety (2015) have the three highest rates in the world of road deaths caused by impaired drivers. Australia, France, and Italy come in just below the United States at 30 percent, 29 percent, and 25 percent, respectively.

There may be a number of reasons to explain the high rate of fatalities caused by impaired drivers, including lack of public transportation options and dispersed population centers. But Russia, a country rumored to celebrate drinking and a country with a huge land mass, is reported to have only 9 percent of its road fatalities caused by drunk driving. Now you might reasonably surmise that Russia’s statistical reporting is lacking or otherwise manipulated, but the World Health Organization, which compiled this report takes into account any data manipulation or lack of reliable statistics. Germany, a country known for its robust beer drinking, matches Russia’s 9 percent rate.

Could these differences be explained by the drunk driving laws? Perhaps, but probably not by the legal BAC levels. Canada (most provinces) and the United States have a 0.08 percent BAC threshold. But the legal limit is South Africa is 0.05 percent BAC. And while Germany and Russia have a 0.05 percent BAC legal threshold, so does Australia, France and Italy, countries that have a much higher rate of deaths caused by impaired drivers. Consider that France, with a 29 percent rate of drunk driving fatalities has a 0.05 percent BAC threshold, while Great Britain, with a 16 percent rate of drunk driving fatalities has a 0.08 percent BAC limit.

Driving under the influence is dangerous enough; it affects a driver’s motor skills, reaction times and judgment. But how many drivers out there are under the influence of alcohol or drugs and using their cell phone while they drive? My guess is a lot. Recently an 18-year old Stockton driver who was under the influence of alcohol thought it was a clever idea to record video to Instagram while driving with two 14-year-olds in the backseat. One of those passengers was her sister. As the drunken, video-streaming teen drove down a road near Los Banos, California, her car veered and she overcorrected causing the car to overturn. Her 14-year-old sister was killed; the other passenger suffered serious injuries.

The 18-year-old should never have been drinking in the first place, much less driving with two 14-year- olds in the car. As I have discussed on previous occasions, teen brains have not matured and many teens have poor decision-making skills. That doesn’t give this driver a pass–she has been charged with vehicular manslaughter and other crimes. Worse yet, she will live with the memory of killing her little sister for the rest of her life.

But I wonder about all the adults of legal drinking age who are out on our roads driving under the influence and texting, posting to social media, or even just navigating on their cell phone. Researchers have asked: What’s more dangerous, driving with a .08% BAC or texting? One study conducted by the University of Utah found that cell-phone use resulted in greater driver impairment than driving under the influence of alcohol. Car and Driver Magazine conducted simulated driving test on driver reaction times. Their results: the texting drivers’ reaction time was as much as two times slower than the drunk drivers’ reaction time.

You would expect that the Glendale mother who recently ran over her 7 year old while she was driving under the influence would be charged not only with DUI but child endangerment. But you don’t necessarily have to injure your child to get slapped with child endangerment charges if you are driving drunk.

In the case of the Glendale mother, she ran over her child’s leg as she left a parking stall at a grocery store with her son clinging to the passenger side door. Fortunately, the child did not suffer significant injuries but his mother was booked for felony DUI and child endangerment. This mom is probably going to prison and she will certainly lose custody of her children, perhaps permanently.

DUIs may be charged as a felony whenever there is bodily injury to another person caused by a vehicle being driven by someone under the influence (Vehicle Code §25153). A person convicted of felony DUI with injury can be sentenced to up to four years in prison.

HOW ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUGS AFFECT YOUR BRAIN

Everyone knows that when a person is under the influence of certain drugs, their driving may become impaired, but not everyone knows why.

Let’s start with the most common drug: alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant. Depressants cause the central nervous system to slow down, usually by enhancing a neurotransmitter called gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA). GABA reduces a person’s nerve cell excitability (the process that transmits information in our brains). Without GABA, we’d be a “bundle of nerves.”

Is this a trend? The DUI arrests made in Orange County during the 2016 New Year’s holiday was almost half the number of DUI arrests during the 2015 New Year’s holiday. Los Angeles County also saw a decrease in DUI arrests although not as sharp a decline as that in Orange County. So too in San Diego where DUI arrests were slightly down from last year. This might be explained by fewer checkpoints this year than last but there is also the possibility that the increasing popularity of ride sharing apps such as Uber and Lyft are encouraging more people to leave the car keys at home on New Year’s Eve.

In fact, several studies have indicated that ride sharing programs are directly responsible for a decrease in drunken driving crashes among drivers under the age of 30 and a 3.6 to 5.6 percent decline in deaths caused by drunken driving. The research was conducted by studying DMV records from different markets before ride sharing entered that market and comparing those records to records after ride sharing entered each particular market studied.

While the verdict is not in, early studies do suggest that ride sharing programs can take credit for a decrease in drunk driving. Mothers Against Drunk Driving agree: “We definitely do believe that Uber, or any other ride-sharing company, has helped us in our fight against drunk driving,” said Natasha Thomas, a program director for MADD.. “They offer reliable, right-to-the-minute services to help people get home safe instead of getting behind their wheels intoxicated,” she added.