One Drunk Night Worth $10,000. It’s Not as Great as it Sounds. — Final
It was never out of the ordinary for 40-year-old Darren King to have a couple drinks and drive himself home. He was someone who’s first ticket was not a parking or speeding violation, but a DUI which he received in Nov., 2016.
“Growing up in Kauai,” King said, “it was a family tradition to casually drink everywhere you went. My dad would pick me up to go to Costco and already have a ‘roadie’ waiting for me. Nobody took taxis. We drove ourselves around and trusted that no one would get too out of hand.”
Drinking and driving in the states has sadly become a common thing. People will knowingly take their precious lives for granted to drive themselves home after a long night of drinking. Consequences of a DUI can involve license suspension, jail time and conviction of manslaughter.
King lives to regret the night he was pulled over after driving home from The Pretty Woman, a bar in Newport Beach.
“I was the only fucking idiot at two in the morning driving in Laguna Beach,” King said. “I wasn’t pulled over for swerving between lanes, just swerving in my own lane. That’s how they got me.”
He described the 14 hours spent in jail as feeling the lowest he had ever felt.
“It was a concrete box with one fluorescent light overhead that would never turn off. There was one stainless steel toilet and a concrete bench to sit on,” said King. “I had no sense of time at all.”
King’s advice to anyone who drinks and drives frequently is this: “It’s just not worth it especially these days with the abundance of Ubers and Lyfts. You can either spend $10,000 for a DUI or just $20 for an Uber. If you drink and drive, you probably think you’re always good, but just remember how low .08 is — it’s very low. If you think you’re fine, you’re probably over.”
Thankfully for King, his worst outcome was receiving the DUI and having a suspension of his license. For others, there can be worse.
According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 1.5 million people are arrested annually for drunk driving.
Joseph Granard is just one of those people who learned his lesson after being convicted of driving under the influence.
“A number like that makes me never want to drink again,” and that’s just what he did after receiving his third DUI when he was 35 years-old. They pulled him over for speeding. He couldn’t stop repeating how he didn’t know why he decided to go 95 miles per hour on the freeway.
“The police gave me my sobriety test, but I already knew I was going to fail. I had been drinking all day and night,” Granard said. “And after my third DUI, I wasn’t going to jail to rebel. I knew why I was there.” That is where his journey to sobriety began.
Granard said the most important thing he realized after his third DUI was that he could have really made a mess of his life with his parents and family.
“If I had gotten into an accident and hurt someone, my family and I would have to live with that thought for the rest of our lives,” Granard said. The now 65-year-old has been sober for about 30 years.
Lastly, Joshua Spies, a man who has never been convicted of a DUI, but knows many people who have, has allowed their mistakes to teach him how serious drinking and driving is.
“I have learned every time that my days are numbered. I’ve learned how expensive DUIs are and how life changing they can be. It’s so easy and inexpensive to take an Uber,” Spies said.
This country is raising its younger generations in a place where there is a numbness to how valuable life is. Just like King’s childhood where he grew up in a free-living community, he learned the hard way that freedom comes with consequences when it is taken advantage of.
People must take into consideration not only how important their lives are, but the ones surrounding them, and never get behind the wheel drunk. Thankfully today, there are many ways to avoid drinking and driving. It’s always possible for someone under the influence to arrange a sober ride home and bypass a road that will never be easy to come back from.
