Drunk Driver Causes Accident Killing Two People

34-year-old Leodegario Hernandez Juarez was driving while intoxicated Monday night, causing a "violent" three car accident that killed two people in Texas. The Dallas County Medical Examiner's office identified the dead as 49-year-old James Carr and 43-year-old Lashun Russell, both of Dallas. Survivors of the crash, including an 8-year-old girl, were taken to various hospitals to be treated for serious injuries.

Juarex, driving a Ford F-150, ran a red light and crashed into two other cars. The impact caused one of the cars to wrap around a metal utility pole. 

"I saw the truck just run the light, and I saw when it hit the car," said witness Ismail Tores.

Police said witnesses tackled and detained Juarez, who attempted to run from the scene after the crash. Jail records indicate he was in the United States illegally.

Juarez was arrested at the scene on two counts of intoxication manslaughter and one count of intoxication assault. 

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Drunk Driving Statistics

Here are some interesting statistics for the state of Massachusetts when it comes to driving under the influence. 

• Total alcohol impaired driving fatalities in 2010 - 114

• Under 21 Alcohol Impaired Driving Fatalities - 14

• Percent of Alcohol-Impaired Driving Fatalities Involving high BAC drivers (.15+) - 72.2%

• Percent of Drivers in Fatal Drunk Driving Crashes Involving Repeat Offenders (BAC .08-.14) - 20%

• Percent of Drivers in Fatal Drunk Driving Crashes Involving Repeat Offenders (BAC .15+) - 80%

• Under 18 arrested for driving under the influence in 2010 - 78

• Total arrested for driving under the influence -  11634

Click here for more statistics, or to check what they are for your state.

19-Year-Old Kills Two While Drunk Driving

19-Year-Old Carmen Elena Chavez was driving drunk in L.A. on early Sunday and crashed her car, killing two innocent bystanders. 

Chavez had been out partying Saturday night with a group of friends before her, and four friends, hopped into the 1989 Mercedes Benz which later killed two people. 

She was speeding and tried to make a right turn and crashed into two homeless people who were sleeping on the street, trapping them under the car and dragging them about 50 feet before crashing the car to a stop. 

Most of the people in the car fled except for Chavez and the cars owner - both were arrested at the scene. Chavez was charged with vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence and was booked in Los Angeles County Jail.

The homeless pair had to be removed from under the car using the jaws of life.. both were pronounced dead at the scene of the crash.


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Drunk Driver Kills 5 Orphans - 7 Dead Total

Thirty-year-old Alexander Maximov crashed into a bus stop in Southern Moscow, Russia, killing five orphan teens (ages 14-18), their guardian Olga Shirshova, and her husband. The incident happend in September after, Maximov admitted, going on a two day drinking binge. And what's even more pathetic is that Maximov had just gotten his license back in March after loosing it in 2010 for another account of drunk driving. 


Maximov is now being sued by lawyer Igor Trunov on behalf of the orphanage the children came from. Relatives of Olga are also seeking damages. Trunov said he hoped to collect a total of 73,863,649 rubles and 44 kopeks on behalf of Children's Home No. 7, where the teens lived: 23.86 million rubles to cover expenses incurred in burying the teens and 10 million rubles in moral damages for each of the teens. In total, Maximov is being sued for $2.67 million (US) which is about 84 million rubles.

Police are considering charging Maximov with multiple counts of manslaughter while driving under the influence of alcohol, which carries a punishment of up to nine years in prison followed by a three-year ban on driving.

Maximov stated that he "should shoot himself for his actions."

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What Are The Drunk Driving Laws Of Your Home State?

Just in case you had any questions about the drunk driving laws in your state, check out this easy-to-read chart that breaks it down for you.

Click Here for the chart


More information:

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have per se laws defining it as a crime to drive with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above a proscribed level, 0.08 percent.

License suspension or revocation traditionally follows conviction for alcohol-impaired driving. Under a procedure called administrative license suspension, licenses are taken before conviction when a driver fails or refuses to take a chemical test. Because administrative license suspension laws are independent of criminal procedures and are invoked right after arrest, they've been found to be more effective than traditional post-conviction sanctions. Forty-one states and the District of Columbia have administrative license suspension laws.

Forty-five states permit some offenders to drive only if their vehicles have been equipped with ignition interlocks. These devices analyze a driver's breath and disable the ignition if the driver has been drinking.

In 30 states, multiple offenders may forfeit vehicles that are driven while impaired by alcohol. Forty-three states and Washington D.C. have laws prohibiting the driver, passengers or both from possessing an open container of alcohol in the passenger compartment of a vehicle.

Drunk Driver Crashed School Bus With Children On Board

This seems to be happening a lot lately.. 47-year-old James Sommer was a Long Island school bus driver who crashed his bus while driving for a field trip. He had a group of 7th graders and a teacher from Plainedge Middle School on board at the time of the incident. Luckily nobody was seriously hurt, but a 12-year-old girl was taken to a nearby hospital for minor injuries.

Sommer was charged with aggravated driving while intoxicated with a child passenger 15 years or younger (Leandra's Law), driving while intoxicated while operating a school bus with students on board, and endangering the welfare of a child.

Another school bus driver was arrested Oct. 11when he crashed an empty school bus near 60 of the Long Island Expressway in Ronkonkoma. Police found an open bottle of vodka on the bus. 

On Oct. 4, a school bus driver crashed into a home just after leaving a Catholic elementary school with five children on board. He was arrested the next day on several charges. 

Check out the links for information on the other two school bus stories, and click the link below to watch videos for them, as well as check out the original Sommer's article.

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Drunk Driver Crashes With Three Kids And Flees

Zona Taylor, 43, was allegedly driving drunk this past Saturday night. With her, she had her own son, 8 years old, and two grandchildren ages 4 and 6. She also had another adult in the car with her as well. 

Zona Taylor, photo taken after her accident and arrest.

She ended up crashing into another vehicle, minor-ly injuring the other driver and the three kids in her car. She then grabbed the children and tried to get away on foot. Taylor was arrested shortly after the crash in a nearby town.

The children were brought to the hospital and then released to other relatives. Taylor, however, was charged with a DWI, aggravated DWI with a child 15 years or younger, leaving the scene of an accident with an injury, and three counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

Leandra's law, which makes it "an automatic felony on the first offense to drive drunk with a person age 15 or younger inside the vehicle" could send Taylor to jail for up to four years.


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Drunk Driving Simulator

This is a great idea, and should be available at high schools and colleges across the US! It's a drunk driving simulator, so that you can get behind the wheel (safely) while being "under the influence". This was set up this past week at Muskegon Community College and Baker College  in Michigan for students to test out in honor of National Collegiate Alcohol Liability Week.

The simulator is provided by AAA, and any students who participate will be given pizza an iTunes gift cards (because what college student doesn't need that!) and have the chance to enter a drawing for free gas. 

On top of the simulator, there is also an outdoor course where students can wear beer goggles and try their luck at driving to see how it feels.

As Lt. Jon Gale states, “It’s to show students their inability to drive safely while intoxicated.” 


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Addiction: Men vs Women

Addiction was once seen as a "man's problem" but recent research has done testing on the effects of addiction on both men and women and who does better when it comes to addiction recovery. Generally speaking, women have a tendency to fall into chemical addiction faster than men, however they are less likely to struggle and tend to do just as well in recovery as men do. Here are the results overall.



Prevalence: Winner - Women

Men are twice as likely to addicted to drugs (though it's about even when it comes to prescription drugs). Though when it comes to alcohol abuse, it skyrockets to men being about three times as likely as women to be addicted. 


Risk Factor: Winner - Tie

Studies have found that men tend to use drugs to amplify positive moods and cope with social and behavioral problems, while women are more likely to self-medicate emotional and psychological issues. Anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder and eating disorders more commonly affect women and can increase their risk of drug use. Men, by contrast, are more often affected by antisocial personality disorder, which may or may not increase the risk of drug use.


Barriers To Treatment: Winner - Men

Both men and women face significant barriers to treatment, but studies show that women who abuse drugs are less likely to seek help. Practical concerns such as cost, child-care arrangements, lack of social support, and responsibilities at home and work, along with the heightened stigma of being a female addict, are among the hurdles women face.


Response to Treatment: Winner - Tie

Once women find their way into treatment, they are just as likely as men to stay there and have comparable abstinence and relapse rates as men. Some studies suggest that women have the upper hand in recovery, with shorter relapse periods and greater willingness to seek help after a relapse. Like men, women may benefit from services that are sensitive to their specific needs; for example, family/group therapy, parenting education, treatment for mental disorders and other supportive approaches.



Click Here for the original article and some more great information 

Drunk School Bus Driver Crashes Bus

Every morning you send you kids off to school with a bus driver you're supposed to be able to trust to keep your kids safe. That may not be the case in a South Carolina town. 61-year-old school bus driver Margaret Means was driving drunk with a BAC limit of .17 - just over double the legal limit! 

Means spun the school bus out of control before crashing it in a ditch. Though there were no students on the bus at the time of the crash, she had just dropped off about 100 students less than an hour before the incident.
"When you are transporting other people, that puts a bigger perspective because that puts so many other people's lives at risk when you do that," said Lance Corporal Brent Kelly.

Drinking and driving is never a good decision, but when your job is to safely get people from point A to point B it's completely unacceptable. Even more so when it's children.


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Hero Campaign To Stop Drunk Driving

Bill Elliot created the Hero Campaign after his son John was killed by a drunk driver. The aim is in order to raise awareness of and prevent drunk driving. This Sunday at the Ocean City boardwalk, two thousand people showed up to help support the Hero campaign, the Elliot family, as well as everyone else who has ever lost someone due to drunk driving.

"We want to end every parent's worst nightmare we want to make sure no one else has to suffer the tragedy we did or all the people that are on our memory banner today," said Hero Campaign founder Bill Elliot.



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Drunk Driver Drives Flaming Car To Gas Station

This incident is a little closer to home! 49-year-old Barbara Ann Bearden from Weymouth was charged for quite a few things this past Sunday after driving drunk:  operating under the influence of alcohol, operating to endanger, leaving the scene of an accident after causing property damage, and failure to stay within marked lanes.

While driving down route 3A, Bearden hit a guardrail, most likely multiple times, which popped both her passenger side tires so she was left driving on her rims. Debris from her car was found in several areas along route 3A. She decided to drive her car, on fire, to a Mobile gas station in Hingham (makes perfect sense). 

The gas station attendant, as well as a local resident who was pumping his gas only 15 feet from where Bearded parked her flaming car, used fire extinguishers to put out the flames before police showed up.

Bearden, who smelled of alcohol, was arrested after failing multiple sobriety tests. She admitted she had been drinking earlier.

It's a miracle no one was killed, and nothing blew up.



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Man Killed Boy While Drunk Driving - Not His First!!

54 year-old Ricky Weeden turned himself over to authorities two days after running down two boys who were crossing the street. Rayeshon Williams, aged four, died at the crash while his ten-year-old brother, Jayshard Conner, was hospitalized for his injuries.

The sad part is this is not the first time Weeden has killed someone while being behind the wheel! Back in 1983 he killed two people and had been charged for careless and imprudent driving. He has about five separate occasions in which he was convicted of drunk driving.

Unfortunately, because he turned himself in 48 hours after the incident, there's no way to tell if he was, in fact, drunk at the time of the crash that killed four-year-old Rayeshon.

These are the people that need to be kept off the streets. After the first time actually KILLING innocent people by being to careless to not drive drunk, his licences should have been revoked completely. Though I'm sure that wouldn't have stopped him, but anything after that should have led to an arrest and the child that he just killed would still be alive. 



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Teen Drunk Driving Descreases As Gas Prices Increase

While we may all be feeling the staggering gas prices hitting our wallets pretty hard, it appears there might actually be a benefit to the gas prices on the rise. The incidences of teens drunk driving has dramatically decreased, in fact it's down 54% from twenty years ago.

We all know the economy is down, and teens just don't have as many jobs to get to to need to be driving so most teens just haven't been driving as much as they use to be. It's also become a harder process for teens to get their licenses, and have more restrictions like driving at night, passenger restrictions, and longer schooling. 

Back in 2010, 22% of high school seniors reported not driving at all in an average week, up from 15% not driving in 2000. And based on studies, Males are more likely to drive drunk than females. 



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Honors Student Kills Two In Drunk Driving Accident

18-year-old Takunda Mavima, a graduate of Wyoming High School, Michigan, and an honors student, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for killing two of his classmates.. while driving drunk. Krysta Howell, 15, and Timothy See, 17 were killed in the fatal crash that wounded three others aged 16-18. However, many believe that the punishment is too great for such a young kid, even the victims families asked for the judge to be more lenient. 

As Tim See's sister Laura states, "I am begging you to let Takunda make something of himself in the real world-- don't send him to prison and get hard and bitter, that boy has learned his lesson a thousand times over and he'll never make the same mistake again."

His punishment is already on the state's low-end guidelines for the crime he committed.

Takunda appologized to the court, "I just want to say I'm so sorry I took two bright, intelligent, wonderful people out of this world... I'm sorry."


A worst-case scenario of mixing alcohol and driving..


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Facts And Tips For Drunk Driving

This is a great little site I found that has tons of tips and advice about drunk driving. All deaths caused by drunk driving are 100% preventable. All it takes is making the right choice. Below is just a small sample of some of the great things in this article, so check out the full page to get all the great info!

Facts:
The relative risk of death for drivers in single-vehicle crashes with a high BAC is 385 times that of a zero-BAC driver and for male drivers the risk is 707 times that of a sober driver, according to estimates by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).


Solutions:
Automatic license revocation appears to be the single most effective measure to reduce drunk driving.

Mandating the installation of interlock devices that prevent intoxicated persons from starting a vehicle.


If You Must Drive, Stay Completely Sober:
Know your limit. If you are not sure, experiment at home with your spouse or some other responsible individual. Explain what you are attempting to learn. Most people find that they can consume one drink per hour without any ill effects.

Accept a drink only when you really want one. If someone tries to force a drink on you, ask for a non-alcohol beverage instead. If that doesn't work, "lose" your drink by setting it down somewhere and leaving it.

Protect Others:
Volunteer to be a designated driver.

Don't ever let your friends drive drunk. Take their keys, have them stay the night, have them ride home with someone else, call a cab, or do whatever else is necessary - but don't let them drive!



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