I have never ceased to be amazed at the entertainment value of alcohol fueled crime. If the consequences weren't so serious you could just sit back and enjoy the tragicomic nature of these. Most times though you were just happy you caught someone before someone got hurt.
Alcohol is the nexus (my word of the day) that binds the vast majority of impaired driving incidents that came to my attention. Several stand out, including the naked DWI, and the story I just wrote about. Twice in my career I charged two people at the same time for impaired driving with the same vehicle (a friend of mine had an incident with three impaired drivers for the same vehicle). But it was a rare event when a driver called the police demanding a breath test.
I was in the office in La Ronge one afternoon when the phone rang and I ended up speaking with the owner of the company that ran the School Buses at the time. He told me that he had received a report that one of his drivers had been drinking and when he checked it out she denied it vehemently and was demanding to come to the Detachment to take a breathalyzer test. I explained that I couldn't make her take the test, and he said that she was insisting on it. I checked that we had a breathalyzer tech available and then told him to tell her to come on down.
A very short time later a big yellow school bus rolled up to front of the detachment, followed by the owner in his truck. The woman came in and began ranting how she was being falsely accused and that she wanted to take a test. I asked her if she just drove up in the bus and confirmed it with the owner, and then I explained to her that she didn't have to take the test, but that if she did take it and failed that I would read her a demand and she would have to take the test.
I wasn't paying attention to any signs of impairment to tell you the truth. I was busy on another matter and assumed that if someone drives up to the police station asking for a breathalyzer they must be pretty confident of passing the darn test. I turned her over to the breath tech and then went back to, what was no doubt, a large pile of paper work and over due files that I had.
After some time had passed I looked up to see the breathalyzer technician putting the woman in an interview room. He then walked over and didn't say anything but just shook his head and handed me the results of her first test. Incredibly she blew 270. 270! The legal limit is 80 (or the numbers would more commonly be called .27 and .08). In other words this woman, who was waiting in line to pick up school children up at the end of their day and take them home had more than three times the legal limit of alcohol in her blood.
I walked into the interview room to read her her rights, a breathalzyer demand, and to effectively end her career as a school bus driver.
Comments
5 responses
I love it!
Thanks Tina
Yes, it is funny, but it’s also depressing – silly cow, I bet she was so drunk she was sober… so they say. They did a test on one of our motoring shows recently and scarily enough between a pool of drunken drivers and exhausted ones, the drunks faired better in controlling their cars!! Now that IS scary.
I guess it makes your job easier when they catch themselves.
Luckily there is humour in many things that are depressing Fiona-Jane. Part of life is finding that humour I suppose. Luckily it ended this way and not with a school bus crash. Driver fatique is a serious problem. I’ve lost friends to both impaired drivers and fatigued drivers.
Yeah, criminal natural selection at its finest John.