Considering whether YOU should take that DUI breath test . . .

Apparently - NO!

Breath Alcohol Technician Ticketed For Possible DUI

A man who makes his living calibrating the breath alcohol analyzers for the state police was ticketed Thursday evening, Aug. 26, under the suspicion of driving under the influence. Clyde Mathews of Waterloo, a breath alcohol technician with the Illinois State Police, was cited for DUI Thursday night after he ran into a parked car on Waterloo Drive. Just before 10 p.m., Mathews, 68, was driving a 2004 Lincoln LS north on Waterloo Drive when he collided with Carolyn Sabo’s 2004 Nissan Altima, which was parked in front of her house. The collision moved Sabo’s car several feet and caused damage to the bumper and taillight. Mathews was not injured in the accident. Mathews is a former Waterloo alderman and police officer.

From the Monroe County Independent

Fun Facts: DUI - All of Illinois vs Los Angeles County

Sometimes with DUI, it's interesting to take a step back and look at the big picture. Yes, sometimes it looks like a bunch of meaningless numbers collected by government agencies, but what the heck?

Los Angeles County California, if nothing else, is a cultural and socioeconomic microcosm . . . ok, it's a freakshow fun to follow, and they have great weather, and I'm envious because in Chicago where I live and practice DUI law, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes. And they have Smokin', which, if you've never been . . . I feel sorry for you. Mmmm. . .

But I digress. Here's the point, check out these stats and let me know what you think!

Los Angeles County California population as of 2007: 9,807,870

LA County DUI arrests in 2007: 42,736

Illinois population as of 2008: 12,901,563

Illinois DUI arrests in 2008: 48,113

What's so interesting about that other than that LA County has a lot of freaking bodies packed into a very tight space? Why the percentages, of course!

According to this, there are 4.36 arrests for every 100 actors-working-as-waiters living in LA county! Contrast this with the 3.73 arrests per 100 actually-living voters, alderman and precinct bosses living in Illinois (not just Chicago), and maybe Illinois hasn't earned quite the level of hysteria regarding DUI that our more glamorous western friends experience on an hourly basis. Maybe.

Illinois DUI fatalities decline . . . steadily since 2002.

According to a press release today by the Illinois Government News Network, "The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), Division of Traffic Safety today released data showing a lower number of alcohol-involved, motor vehicle fatalities in Illinois. The reduction in alcohol-involved fatalities has occurred steadily since 2002 with the largest decline occurring between 2007 and 2008."

Additionally, "According to data from IDOT and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the number of motor vehicle fatalities involving a drinking driver declined modestly but steadily from 2002 through 2008, culminating with a 16-percent decrease between 2007 and 2008. The number of fatalities involving a legally impaired driver (0.08 BAC and above) also declined from 2002 through 2008, and the total number of fatalities decreased by 77 between 2007 and 2008, a reduction of about 18 percent.

Another encouraging sign of improvement is the reduction in the Illinois’ alcohol-related fatality rate, the ratio of alcohol-involved fatalities to total annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in Illinois. This rate has been above 0.50 for several years in Illinois, but fell to 0.48 in 2007 and to a low of 0.41 in 2008."

So read that bit again. The number of fatalities involving motorists legally impaired (including those not caused by the impaired motorist) has steadily declined since 2002. Meanwhile, the last 3 years has seen increasingly tougher laws and penalties related to DUI. If decline has been steady between 2002 and the start of this toughening of laws, one has to ask . . . why change laws that worked?

Can you get sentenced to life in prison for a DUI? Guess so.

Prosecutor says the punishment of life in prison is justified because he was a repeat offender.

If DUI is being punished as severely as murder, something is wrong.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-man-life-sentence-ninth-dwi/story?id=11395058

Sentence in Illinois DUI crash killing man's best friends

Closing out a sad tale involving a traffic accident that resulted in the death of his two best friends, Thomas G. Ofenloch pled guilty to committing Aggravated DUI in Illinois in a Kane county courtroom. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Judge taking his plea. An expert witness in accident reconstruction testified that Ofenloch's vehicle had been traveling at speeds exceeding 100 mph at the time of the accident. Ofenloch, who was also injured in the traffic accident, had spoken over a dozen times to others either guilty of or accused of committing a DUI in Chicago and surrounding areas, and had served over 900 days on electronic home monitoring. The Court declined to credit this time to Ofenloch's sentence. His reported blood alcohol content was over the Illinois legal alcohol limit of 0.08.

Man gets 10 years in DUI crash that killed two best friends :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State

AAIM's misguided recognition

Points to anyone who sees what's wrong with this.

"Congratulations are in order for Cary Police officers Geoffrey Witherow, Ryan Sherman, Tricia Malone and Kathy Eiring, who made a combined 38 DUI arrests in 2009. In May, the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists recognized the four for their work. Witherow made the most DUI arrests out of the group with 25. Sherman and Malone had seven DUI arrests, with Eiring posting six arrests. Statistics show there were 70 total DUI arrests in Cary last year. Cary Acting Chief Ed Fetzer recommended that AAIM honor the four officers responsible for more than 50 percent of them. "Anytime an arrest has been made, we feel a life has been saved," said Anita Huvaere, the AAIM staffer who compiled the statistics for Illinois towns. "That's why we recognized the officers."" Daily Herald.

Every year, AAIM honors officers based on the number of arrests for DUI in Illinois.  All this does is promote arrests.  I'd be more interested in seeing how many of these arrests resulted in findings of guilty.  To suggest that lives were saved because someone was arrested is making some enormous assumptions that may (or may not) be warranted, given the extremely low rate of fatalities as measured against the wildly speculative numbers thrown around by organizations like AAIM of Illinois motorists committing DUI on an annual basis.  AAIM and MADD are constantly crying about how many DUIs are undetected.  If they're right, and if they're consistent, where's the bloodbath? 

Hmm. . . 12 "no-refusal" Illinois DUI arrests in a weekend. Countywide. Meh.

So Kane county holds an Illinois DUI "no-refusal" weekend. They set up with just bunches of officers on duty, and a Judge just waiting for the phone to ring so that Judge can say, "why, of course a warrant is available". The powers that be set this up over July 4th weekend, too, just for good measure. They ought to net a lot of arrests right? After all, the roads are just teeming with drunks that are begging to be arrested.

Maybe not. Eleven participating Illinois law enforcement agencies got a whole 12 DUI arrests out of this. That's right, 12. For the whole county. For the whole weekend.

Really? Here's the question - how many DUI arrests does Kane county, Illinois net on a regular weekend, and was this an effective use of government resource to enforce Illinois DUI laws on our roads. I doubt it, but I'd love to hear the Sun-Times and other news stories do more than just repeat the State's Attorney's PR hype on the subject, and ask some useful questions. Let's hope that until that question is answered, there's some more thought put into this.