DUIs can come at a high cost

The holiday season tends to come with parties where alcohol is served.

But if you get caught driving while intoxicated, your total cost could be far more than the embarrassment.

According to Tom Wilson, a substance-abuse counselor working with the state this season to help battle DUIs, the total monetary costs, fines, court fees, increased insurance, license restitution costs, etc., typically runs between $3,000 and $5,000 for the first offense alone.

On a first offense, Wilson said, the fine typically is half the maximum of $1,000 that can be imposed (plus court costs of at least $80, and not counting legal fees for lawyers).

Usually, a person convicted of a DUI -- driving while having a blood-alcohol content equal to or greater than .08 percent -- will receive a 30-day suspension of their license (reinstatement fees cost about $120-$140), and will have the use of their driver's license restricted for six months following reinstatement.

The driver also will typically be put on probation for two years (the first year supervised, the second unsupervised), and have to pay $35 a month to cover probation administrative costs during that time.

They'll have to serve 40 hours of community service, often with the Sheriff's Inmate Labor Detail (typically picking up garbage along the roads) and have to pay the costs associated with that "privilege" as well.

They'll have to attend at least eight hours of alcohol-traffic school, which adds another $60-$100 of out-of-pocket expenses, Wilson said.

Their insurance will go up significantly for five years, and they also will potentially lose income from the time away from work that all the legal processes take up.

There may be other effects as well. Some employers will fire employees who get DUIs, especially if driving is part of their job description, and if you're in the military you can face even more extensive punishment and black marks on your record.

If it's not your first offense, the punishments get worse and the costs go up even higher.

DUI arrests tend to spike during the holiday season, between now and New Years. In part, that's because there are a large number of parties where alcohol is served, and in part because law enforcement authorities tend to put on more officers to look just for that type of offense during the season.

"People get caught up in the social celebration of the season and drink more than they should," Wilson said.

Yet the 10,000 DUI arrests each year represent only an estimated 2.7 percent of all DUI "incidents," said Wilson. "In Idaho alone, we estimate there are between a quarter of a million and half a million DUI incidents each year," Wilson said.

But the costs of drinking and driving go well beyond money.

Last year, 39 percent of all the traffic fatalities in Idaho were alcohol-related -- a total of 115 deaths. Wilson said the economic impact alone to a community for a single DUI death has been estimated at $3.1 million, after all primary and secondary costs associated with the accident are totalled.

And if you're arrested for a DUI the odds are good it will happen again.

"The percentage of first-time offenders who get re-arrested is about one in three," he said. "That doesn't mean they haven't been driving drunk thousands of times. They probably have.

"The one's we see who are most at risk for re-arrest usually blow a .15 or above" on the breathalyzer test at the time of their first arrest, Wilson said.

"They also usually have a minimum of three prior traffic violations of some sort. They tend to take traffic laws lightly, so the combination of a drinking problem and a lack of respect for the law, well, it's not rocket science to figure out the result."

The typical DUI offender is 21 years of age. While drivers age 21-25 represent 10 percent of all drivers, they represent 20 percent of all DUI arrests, Wilson said.

A large percentage of DUI arrests involve individuals who have a drinking problem (25 percent of the population), or who are alcoholics (10 percent of the population).

"Less than 10 percent of those people even recognize they have a drinking problem. Usually, it takes some kind of significant event in their lives, like a DUI, to wake them up to the fact."

If you want to check if you have a drinking problem, click on the link at Wilson's website at www.tomwilsoncounseling.com, and take the test.

Although the legal limit of .08 percent blood-alcohol contest is what the state considers to be legally drunk (if you're a minor it's even less than that), even the smallest amounts of alcohol can affect your judgement and your driving skills.

At .02 percent, drivers begin to experience divided attention problems. Cell phones, eating, smoking while you're driving, become even greater distractions than normal.

At .05 percent, the driver begins to experienced reduced motor coordination functions. It would take longer than normal, for example, to react to something happening in front of you on the road.

"Add that to fatigue, which is typical after a night of drinking, and the effect is the same level as a .08, even though you're not technically legally drunk. The general rule is, keep your level below .055."

To avoid the problems of drinking and driving, and especially to avoid getting a DUI, Wilson offers a number of tips.

First, know what your limit is.

A 150-lb. man can typically have about one drink an hour and stay within the legal limit. That's one 12-oz. beer or 5 ounces of wine or a 1.5-oz "shot" of hard liquor. Women tend not to have as much of the enzynes necessary to process alcohol in the system, so the amount they can drink in the same period is reduced.

Second, eat before you begin drinking (doing it while you drink doesn't help much).

Third, drink a glass of water between each drink, or go grab a snack.

Fourth, count the number of drinks you've had, after having figured out ahead of time how much you can safely drink over a given period of time.

Fifth, mix your own drinks. Bars, during the holiday season, and hosts tend to "think they're doing you a favor by mixing it heavy" with alcohol, Wilson said, so the typical drink this time of year may have more alcohol in it than normal.

Sixth, delay the start of your drinking when you go out. The longer you delay, the more likely your pace will slow down.

And finally, if you have drunk too much, the only cure is time. It takes time for the body to process alcohol and rid it from the system. Either get a designated driver or call a taxi -- or wait to sober up.

"Coffee doesn't help you get sober," Wilson said. "All you get is a jittery drunk."

Wilson doesn't believe people need to avoid alcohol entirely. "Just be smart. Know your limits.

"You don't want to get arrested for a DUI. Nothing's worth that. It can make the price of that six pack go up considerably."