Drunk Driving

August 25, 2011

Portland Dram Shop Suit Seeks $7m+ for Drunk Driving Death

A civil suit filed earlier this month here in Portland is an excellent illustration of Oregon dram shop law and the ways it seeks to protect the public at large and accident victims in particular. According to The Oregonian, the husband of a woman who died in a Portland drunk driving accident last February is suing not only the alleged drunk driver but also two bars which, he claims, served the driver “while he was visibly intoxicated.”

The newspaper goes on to add that “the complaint accuses the bars of negligence for allowing him to drive, failing to determine whether he planned to drive and failing to alert authorities.”

This is practically the definition of a claim under the Oregon dram shop law – a statute that says a bar or alcohol retailer can be held legally responsibly for the damage done by a patron who clearly should not have been served in the first place.

June 23, 2011

Tualatin Crash leads to Oregon Drunk Driving Conviction

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A 25-year-old Oregon woman has been sentenced to a fine and a diversion program and also had her license suspended after pleading guilty to Oregon drunk driving, according to The Oregonian.

The short article, published earlier this month, is a useful reminder both of the serious consequences of Oregon drunk driving and the tough sanctions that even a first offense can entail. The article does not detail how Lauren Thomas came to be driving drunk when she caused an Oregon car crash in I-5 in Tualatin, but notes that she “drifted out of a lane of traffic and crashed into a flatbed pickup.” The truck’s driver was not injured in the accident.

Thomas, the paper reports, must attend treatment sessions and has lost her driving license for 90 days. She will also have to pay a fine and during this period “cannot consume or possess alcohol, or enter bars or liquor stores.” She will also have to read a book on the consequences of drunk driving and submit a report on it to the presiding judge in her case.

June 18, 2011

Innovative Program Combats Teen Drunk Driving

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Chalk one up for Orange County, California in the quest for innovative ways to combat drunk driving. According to a recent article in the Orange County Register a recent student assembly in the San Clemente High School gym featured “an actual court session and sentencing of a DUI defendant.”

The paper reports that the County Superior Court session was moved to the school for part of one day as a way of emphasizing the seriousness of drunk driving and its consequences. Placing the session in the school allows anti-drunk driving activists to demonstrate this directly to teens – a group who have traditionally both been at extremely high risk for drunk driving injuries and fatalities while also being unusually difficult to reach in effective ways.

A session later in the day at the same school featured “an Orange County deputy district attorney (discussing) family consequences from a teen DUI or DUI-related crash.”

May 24, 2011

Portland Drunk Driver (Unwittingly) Helps Police Capture Him

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Fox News used to run a regular segment called “stupid criminals.” If it were still on the air the subject of today’s Oregon drunk driving blog would definitely be a candidate.

According to The Oregonian, Aaron Arrell killed a woman in an Oregon fatal hit-and-run accident in March, and was apprehended in large part because he tried to cover his tracks by having his wife phone police to report their van – the vehicle involved in the accident – stolen. “Had they not called, it may have gone unsolved,” the paper quotes a Multnomah County prosecutor saying.

When police caught up with Arrell – based largely on the description of the vehicle that his wife had given them – he tested for blood alcohol at almost twice the legal limit, according to the paper. It also emerged that he was driving on a suspended license, and had been cited twice previously for doing so in the weeks prior to the Portland drunk driving fatality.

April 26, 2011

Portland Man Convicted in Fatal Drunk Driving Crash

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A Clatsop County court has convicted a 45-year old Portland man in a case stemming from a fatal drunk driving car crash last year, according to The Oregonian.

The case of Ken Middleton’s Portland fatal car crash is particularly shocking not only because of the sheer amount of alcohol he consumed in the hours leading up to the accident, but also because he got behind the wheel so completely intoxicated despite having his own 13-year-old daughter riding with him. The Daily Astorian reported that Middleton, at his trial, “admitted he had consumed at least 12 beers that day.” His daughter, mercifully, “suffered only minor injuries,” according to The Oregonian.

In addition to Oregon drunk driving Middleton was convicted of manslaughter, second-degree assault and three counts of reckless endangering, The Oregonian reports. The manslaughter charge stems from the death of Andrew Church, a motorcyclist whom Middleton struck head on when he drifted over the centerline as he and his daughter drove along US-30 in Astoria last May.

April 24, 2011

Oregon Drunk Driving Targeted by School Program

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An innovative program at a high school in Yamhill recently brought together students and local safety officials to demonstrate the dangers of Oregon drunk driving, according to an account in the Yamhill Valley News-Register.

The program, known as SKID (Stopping Kids Intoxicated Driving) was developed in 1998 by the Sheriff’s Office in Washington County, west of Portland. It encourages students to work with local police and fire officials, the sheriff’s office, state police and a local funeral home to demonstrate Oregon drunk driving car crash scenarios that are, in the paper’s words, “highly realistic but not real.”

The demonstration described by the newspaper was designed to simulate the effects of drunk driving and drug use in the imagined aftermath of prom night. In addition to the students assigned to simulate impaired driving, others were texting in the car, some of them riding without wearing seat belts. Those details were designed to emphasize to teens the importance not just of not driving while impaired, but also of not choosing to ride along with an impaired driver.

April 19, 2011

Road Rage Leads to Drunk Driving Arrest

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A story from Northern California offers a vivid reminder for us here in Oregon that drunk driving can lead to all kinds of trouble above and beyond car crashes. According to a recent account in the Red Bluff Daily News, a man is now in prison after what appears to have been an alcohol-fueled road rage incident on Interstate 5.

The paper reports that the alleged incident unfolded after a 21-year-old driver passed a car on the right. That vehicle was driven by 66-year-old Warren Hawkins. The younger driver reportedly went around Hawkins after driving behind him for some time in the fast lane where Hawkins was reportedly traveling several miles per hour below the speed limit.

Hawkins allegedly responded by first pulling alongside the younger man “yelling and making hand gestures,” and then attempting to side-swipe him twice. He then moved back behind the 21-year-old’s vehicle so that he could ram it – again, twice. The paper reports that Hawkins next followed his alleged victim when he exited the interstate, making a u-turn in an intersection and then coming “back the wrong way… before swerving left to complete a circle” around the younger man. The out-of-control driver was reportedly shouting “death threats out an open window” when police arrived on the scene.

April 3, 2011

Hit-and-Run Spotlights Drunk Driving Danger

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Oregonians could learn some lessons about the dangers of drunk driving accidents from an incident unfolding to our south, in Northern California.

A 64-year-old retired La Selva Beach man is facing serious charges after what media reports describe as a classic drunk driving hit-and-run accident. The Santa Cruz Sentinel, quoting police sources, says the alleged perpetrator “was driving a 2006 Camry south on State Park Drive approaching the Highway 1 off ramp just before 2 p.m.” last Sunday when he hit a 12-year-old boy in a crosswalk.

The paper reports that the driver fled, but witnesses at the scene “helped identify him” leading to his arrest just over an hour later. The good news is that the child does not appear to have been seriously injured.

March 9, 2011

Oregon Drunk Driving Case Raises Dram Shop Questions

by Matthew D. Kaplan

As reported by The Oregonian, the circumstances surrounding a recent two-car Coastal Oregon car accident on Highway 101 raise a number of potential legal issues, including whether the victims may be in a position to press an Oregon dram shop case.

The newspaper, quoting police sources, reports that the accident took place when an Oldsmobile traveling north on US-101 crossed the center line and hit a southbound pick-up truck. “The impact of the crash tore the Oldsmobile in half, with the two sections coming to rest on opposite sides of the highway,” the paper notes. All three people involved in the crash – the driver of the Oldsmobile and the driver and a passenger in the pick-up – were seriously injured.

Police told The Oregonian that alcohol was a factor in the crash, though the exact nature of its involvement is still under investigation.

March 3, 2011

Oregon Distracted Driving Targeted in Schools

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Schools in Wallowa, in the far east of Oregon, are targeting distracted driving by going directly to the source: placing students in a car equipped with virtual reality technology to convince them of exactly how real the danger is.

According to the Wallowa County Chieftain roughly 50 of the people put through the simulator on a single day at an area high school wound up being ‘victims’ of Oregon distracted driving or Oregon drunk driving accidents. The paper quotes the “impaired driving awareness instructor” who ran the event saying that in the real world “eighty percent of accidents are due to driver distraction” (a statistic which obviously goes far beyond cellphones to encompass ‘legal’ distractions – such as the radio or CD player or dealing with kids in the back seat).

The project, the paper reports, is organized by “UNITE, a Michigan-based organization that sends three teams around the nation for similar demonstrations at high schools and colleges.” The set-up involves placing students in a stationary car while wearing virtual reality goggles. Both the car and the goggles are connected to a computer. To simulate phone-related distractions and texting students use their own cellphones. Drunk driving is simulated by having the computer acknowledge a students’ actions in the car with the appropriate delay for varying levels of intoxication.