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.


Click Here for the original article

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."

Click Here for the original article

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.

Click Here

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.


Click Here for the original article.

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.” 


Click Here for original article

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