Orange County officials issued 67 DUI tickets to drunk drivers over the Labor Day weekend, The Orange County Register reported. There was also one fatal Orange County auto accident during this weekend as Dennis McIntyre, 64, of Fountain Valley, was killed after crashing his 1995 Toyota Tacoma on the northbound I-405 near Beach Boulevard. Officials are investigating whether alcohol was involved in that accident.
California Highway Patrol Officer Denise Quesada said these 67 DUI citations represent an increase from 2007 when 60 DUI citations had been issued. In the year 2006 alone, there were 1,525 traffic collisions in Orange County involving alcohol. Eighty of those injury traffic collisions involved fatalities. That means 10 percent of all injury traffic accidents and 40 percent of all fatal traffic accidents involved a drunk driver.
Our firm handles about 250 serious traffic accident injury cases a year. About 20 percent of these cases are caused by an intoxicated driver. In California, it is illegal to drive a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 or higher. The deaths, injuries, pain suffering and financial devastation caused to innocent DUI accident victims is heart-breaking and cannot be repaired with money. And rarely is there enough money for these victims to be compensated.
Before anyone makes that decision to drink and drive, they should think about the 50 or so people who are being financially pursued by my firm and being criminally prosecuted by law enforcement agencies for the DUI accidents, injuries and loss they caused. Is it worth trying to make it home after drinking? Just because you made it home intoxicated once, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen the next time without you injuring yourself or another innocent motorist or pedestrian. There are about 50 people I could point to who wish they had either not driven or not drank because the consequences of those actions will follow them for the rest of their lives.