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Perspective

Walking the fine line

Did you know that even if a breath test puts you under the legal limit, you might still go to jail? Or that if you seriously hurt someone in a DUI crash, you face at least four years in prison? And if you kill someone, it's at least 10?

By Times staff
Published December 31, 2006

This is a night many people - including many who normally don't - will drink and drive.

Rick Kupchella is a television news anchor and reporter in Minneapolis who recently produced a series of reports on drunken driving for television station KARE.

You can watch those reports online at www.kare11.com/dui. (It's truly worth the time to go online to view it.)

In a recent interview, Kupchella said he sees what's happening with DUI laws in this country as being similar to what began happening with smoking laws 20 years ago. While drinking and driving is not completely illegal in America today, laws appear headed that direction. Colorado has lowered its maximum blood-alcohol concentration to 0.06 percent. And in Florida, you can be jailed if your blood alcohol is lower than that.

The executive summary of Kupchella's reporting is simple: Consequences for drunken driving in Florida are already profound:

- While 0.08 is the maximum allowable limit in Florida, if you are picked up by police here, you spend the night in jail if you blow anything over 0.05.

- If you blow 0.08 or more, you will lose your license for six months. And the first 30 days you have no driving privileges whatsoever. (This is an administrative penalty that does not require conviction.)

- You should not even consider refusing the intoxilizer in Florida. Refusal is considered a separate crime with far greater consequences.

- Upon conviction of drunken driving in Florida, you also face vehicle impoundment, hundreds of dollars in fines and possible jail time.

- If you seriously injure someone in an alcohol-related crash, you face a minimum of four years in prison.

- If you kill someone, it's a minimum 10 years.

Last, consider this: You, personally, are called upon to make the decision whether you've had too much to drink - when you are least capable. The very foundation of drunken driving laws revolves around the idea that - when drinking - your judgment is "impaired."

"Impairment" is measured less by your performance behind the wheel and more by the chemical concentration of alcohol in your system.

The full weight of these consequences hits you with the flick of a switch. You're legal one minute. The next, you're not. The trigger is a measure of alcohol that ultimately comes down to one-thousandth of 1 percent.

[Last modified December 31, 2006, 06:11:42]