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The Riverbend Awareness Project brings you a new conversation each month about important causes and issues in our community. Every month of 2024 we will sit down and have a conversation with a professional from our community about significant issues like heart health, Alzheimer’s, literacy, and more. We’ll then share that conversation with you on the Riverbend Awareness Project Podcast, with the goal of sharing resources, and information that will help you have a better understanding of the particular problems, and solutions, associated with each topic.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast episode are solely those of the individuals participating and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Riverbend Media Group or the Riverbend Awareness Project, its affiliates, or its employees. It is important to note that the discussion presented is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified health care professionals for any medical concerns or decisions. The Riverbend Awareness Project is a product of Riverbend Media Group.
Melissa: Hey, this is Melissa.
Emma: And this is Emma.
Melissa: And here is part 2 of our Impaired Driving Prevention conversation with Lt. Crain. We hope you enjoy.
Emma: How do you think holidays and celebrations affect individuals' decisions to drive impaired or not drive impaired?
Lt. Crain: I think there's definitely an influence on people in this area—not that they want it to be, but as we go into the holidays, it's a time of spending time with our families and processing how our prior year has gone. Right? And so if some people are struggling with depression or have already an alcohol dependency issue, sometimes when you start feeling bad, those things start to creep up on you. You start making decisions that you normally wouldn't make.
And if you don't have the support of your family and loved ones around you, it might be easier to start drinking and try to take—self-medicate is what we'd say in law enforcement—to take that issues and pain away. And so those are tough times. And if you have situations like that, those are times you probably need to seek out and try to receive some professional counseling.
Melissa: Another situation, I guess, that happens: underage drinking.
Lt. Crain: It does?
Melissa: It happens, sadly. Let's say someone makes that choice; they're underage, and they decided to drink. What advice would you give to them about reaching out for help even though they might get in trouble, right? For drinking underage, but then making that choice to not drive.
Lt. Crain: Yeah. So underage drinking, we do see it. And there's a lot of peer pressure, right? When you're a young person trying to make it through life, and you have these peer pressures.
And nobody likes to drink alone. And even when we're younger, when we're making bad decisions, we don't wanna make bad decisions alone. We want that person right there beside us so that we can say, "oh, no. They were there with me." Right? And so you're gonna receive that peer pressure.
First and foremost, I think, as a young person, you need to decide—and this is hard because none of us, when we were 15, 16 years old, were thinking, "oh, man. This is where I'm gonna be when I'm, you know, 50 years old, 55 years old. I'm gonna have myself financially set. I'm gonna have this house. I'm gonna have this career, and I'm gonna be retired. I'm gonna have a yacht," whatever it may be.
At 15, 16 years old, you're worried about, "oh my gosh. I got a pimple on my face, and I gotta go to class tomorrow. What am I gonna do if a certain person in my school doesn't notice me?"
And it's tough, right? Kids are vicious on each other. So you're doing everything you can to fit in.
With that, I think as hard as it may be, you need to decide what you want out of life. I think it's important to educate on how it could affect the rest of your life. If you start consuming alcohol, the addiction properties to that and the chances that you become addicted are high, especially if you start using drugs, which will affect the rest of your life and how things play out for you.
If you do drink and end up getting arrested or being involved in a car crash, it may turn fatal. That stuff follows you through your life. So when you make decisions, as hard as it is to understand as a young person, it's not the end of it. It follows you through your life. And if you're planning on doing certain jobs or being involved in certain security jobs that consist of having security waivers and stuff like that, it can affect what you can do eventually, right? It can affect what schools you can get into. There's a lot of things it can affect. So you just need to be educated and made aware of it prior to making that decision.
Melissa: There was, when I was in high school, every, like, 3 years, they do this project. I can't remember what it was called. Someone would do for their senior project. They put on a big weeklong event where it was all against drunk driving, and they staged this huge accident. It looked real. I was traumatized. We were all in the football field. We looked down and it looked like some of our classmates had gotten into an accident. Someone was through the car on the hood. They looked dead. So police came and arrested the person that was the drunk driver. A helicopter came. I swear there was a helicopter and like life-flighted... So it was intense.
And that whole week too, they had a Grim Reaper come and, like, what the statistic of however many people that it was at the time, like, pass away from drunk driving, like take someone out of a classroom and then they were gone for the rest of the week. At the end of the week, they had a funeral, a fake funeral, but it was still a funeral for the people that had passed away in the staged accident. And then someone came and talked who I think he'd been in a drunk driving accident (he was the drunk driver) and how it had impacted his life.
And I just thought "this... like, why would anyone make that decision?" You know, ever. And then I remember a few years after that—I think I had graduated high school, but there were still people that I knew in high school at the time. So it'd only been a couple of years, and I heard about a student—two students actually. They got in a drunk driving accident.
I think it was just their car, but one of them passed away. He was still in high school. So sad. And then I think the other one survived it, right? But that has to have impacted his life for the rest of his life. And that person that passed away, like his family, his friends, he doesn't get to be with them anymore. So I don't know. It just attests to what you said. Please think about your decisions now and how they're gonna impact you and the people that you care about.
Lt. Crain: I think you're absolutely right. None of us...And I use this in law enforcement a lot, but I'm gonna use it today as far as none of us wake up in the morning knowing there's gonna be a party that night, knowing that "I'm gonna go consume alcohol." None of us wake up and think, "I'm gonna go to that party. I'm gonna consume alcohol. I'm gonna get my car. I'm gonna drive. I'm gonna be in a vehicle collision that's my fault, and I'm gonna take someone's life." Nobody wants that. There's nobody that would say, "oh, that's what I wanna do."
And I reference that to law enforcement when people say, "oh, you know, cops, they just... they're out there to, you know, kill people." I can promise you, there's not one of us that's strapping on the gun, pinning on the badge in the morning thinking, "I sure hope I get in a shooting today." Right?
So I'll take that to this. When I was in Detectives for years, we'd go out and we'd give drug presentations to high school students. In that, I would say this. The very first slide I would ask, "where do you see yourself in 15 years from now?" And that slide would sit there, and I say, "I don't want you to answer that question out loud. I just want you to think about that to yourself." Then the next slide showed a little 16-year-old girl that was homeless, addicted to drugs, and living on the street. And I would tell those kids, "not one of you pictured yourself, 16 years old, addicted to whatever it may be, and homeless living off the street."
So none of us want that, right? But the addictive characteristics of alcohol and drugs are such, we don't know what our DNA makeup is. We don't know if we're gonna be the one that once we have a drink of alcohol, we would struggle with that the rest of our lives. We don't know if we could use marijuana recreationally and not have struggles with it for addiction. I can guarantee you this, if you do do meth, you're gonna have a struggle with it the rest of your life because it's very addictive.
And so those things are things that... Why put extra stress in our lives when you think you're actually gonna take stress away? It's just compounding it.
Emma: So knowing that and knowing that people still do drive impaired, how can we better encourage and educate people?
Lt. Crain: I think that's it, right? We have to have these... When you talked about this thing at your school, we do that at our schools around here, and it's effective. Right?
I remember when my kids were growing up, meth was huge at that time. And remember the commercials on TV or other billboards where—and we didn't have TV in our home, but we had the billboards and stuff. And my daughter still talks about that today. She's like, "it still scares me to shower because I just remember that meth commercial," when we'd be at a hotel room or somewhere, and the person's in the shower, and the next thing you know, they're bleeding and falling up against the side of the shower, and it's because they're addicted to meth. She's like, "yeah. I'd made up my mind I was never ever gonna do that."
Now, do I think we have to do it through fear? Probably not. But I think it is being truthful that that is an actual thing that can happen and educating people on the consequences.
Melissa: Speaking of consequences, what are the consequences of getting a DUI?
Lt. Crain: Well, the apparent consequences are if it's a first offense DUI, you can do 10 days in jail, up to a $1,000 fine, and have your driver's license suspended. Plus, you can have an interlock device placed on your vehicle, which means if you go to start your vehicle, you've got to blow in a device to make sure there's no alcohol in your system before you drive it.
After that, if you have a second DUI, it's up to $2,000 fine, up to a year in jail, interlock device.
If you get a third DUI within ten years, it's a felony. And so a lot of times, what you'd see around here is a 180 day rider in a state penitentiary, and it's kind of a recovery program where you go and try to make the best of your situation. And depending on how you if you succeed there, whether you get out at 180 days and then come back on probation, but the fines get a lot steeper and more expensive at that point.
The other thing I would say is when you get stopped for driving under the influence, whatever it may be, we advise you of what we call the 18-8002 notice of suspension form. That's through the Idaho Transportation Department, and what they do at that point is we notify you of that before we ask for any breath sample or blood sample.
We advise you... it's a big long form. With that, if you fail to take any evidentiary tests, we suspend your driver's license. You get seven days to have a hearing on why you shouldn't have taken the test, why you were right to decline it. If you lose at that, you lose your driving privileges.
At that point, after 30 days, you can apply for a temporary permit to drive to and from work, and that's it, and that's for a year.
But I think the big thing on that is the financial deficit that that puts you in personally and especially your family if you have one. A first time DUI is probably gonna cost you out of pocket, if you hire an attorney and go through the process, $5,000. If you've got more, it's probably gonna cost you more than that depending on who your attorney is.
But I think the other thing we're missing is your insurance rates are gonna go up. You're gonna become a high-risk insurance for your provider. That's gonna cost you several more $100 per year to do that.
Other things in your life that's gonna cost you: possibility of losing your job, depending on what you do for a living. And that financial is a big burden.
Well, let's put all that aside. The number one risk I see, and why you shouldn't drink and drive is if for whatever reason, you are one of these that are involved in a fatal car crash...It's your fault. How do you ever live with the fact that you took somebody else's life because of a poor decision you made?
Melissa: Yeah. That's the worst consequence of all.
Emma: I don't know if you can share any stories, so if you can't share any stories, that's okay. But do you have any examples of how you've seen a life be impacted by impaired driving?
Lt. Crain: I do. Before I do that, I will tell you this. When we arrest DUIs—and I'll get back to a story that I think you're looking for, but I think let's share this: a fun story.
Emma: Oh, good.
Melissa: Yay!
Lt. Crain: So I'm patrolling one night. We get told that there's a motor just keeps revving and revving, and the neighbors are calling. It's, like, 3 AM in the morning. They just keep... This motor just keeps revving and won't shut off. So I go out there; Dispatch dispatches me out there. I go out there.
Well, there's a vehicle, and the front end's kinda down in a canal. Water's kinda going over it, but it's still running. The back tires are outside of the canal. And, man, this guy... I stopped, and as I'm walking up to the pickup, you'd hear it rev really high, then stop for a second. Then rev really high, and stop for a second. So they were right. Exactly what they reported was happening.
When, I walked up, I tap on the window because he's not acknowledging that I'm there. I tap on the window, and he looks at me, and his eyes are so big. He's in shock. And I asked him, "roll down your window."
And he said, "do you want me to stop?"
And I said, "what?"
He goes, "how are you that fast?" Because he thought I was jogging. He thought he was still driving, but he's stuck in the canal. Right?
So I finally get him to shut the car off, get him out of the pickup. (It's a pickup.) Get him out of the pickup. And I tell him I'm gonna be doing a DUI investigation.
I said, "Do you feel like the amount of alcohol you've consumed that night has affected your driving ability?"
He goes, "Well, of course it has. Do you think I'm acting like this all the time?"
Right? And then as this night went on, it just got better.
He had a little dog in there. He just had surgery on his ears just to have his ears stand straight up. And as he was in my car, and we're waiting for the breath test, which we have to wait 15 minutes before we take a breath test. We can talk about that if you want later. He's telling me... calling his dog by name, and I don't remember the dog's name at this point, but he was calling the dog by name and telling me, "I told him he was turning too soon, that so-and-so's driveway wasn't for another 100 feet down the road."
And I said, "what are you telling me?"
He's like, "I'm telling you that dog was driving."
You know? So nobody was hurt. Even though he crashed, nobody was hurt. Those are the ones that bring a smile to your face as an officer— just takes some of the stress off the job—that even though it was a bad decision for him, the guy still ends up arrested for DUI.
But, yes, when you ask, have I seen people's lives impacted? Absolutely. Been to countless fatal car crashes involving alcohol, and what happens is not only does it affect the family that loses a loved one, but it also affects that person who's at fault that was consuming alcohol. And a lot of times, we see their life go downhill because of that. Just the stress load and the amount of things that happen in their lives after that is not well.
Melissa: I'm gonna follow up about the 15 minutes. So do you have to wait 15 minutes after you've interacted with the person, or does it take 15 minutes to get the results for the breath test?
Lt. Crain: You gotta take in a big deep breath and gotta blow out for 15 minutes.(Laughs)
Melissa: And then you pass out because you don't have any air. (Laughs)
Lt. Crain: No, so what happens is we want the benefit of the doubt to go to the person that we're accusing, or that is being investigated for DUI. Right? So what happens is in our training and procedures, once we decide we're gonna ask for a breath test, we make sure the mouth cavity is clear, that there's nothing in the mouth. That can't be any residual alcohol, can't be chewing tobacco, can't be gum. Like, gum may soak in alcohol and keep it in the mouth.
So we clear the mouth, make sure that if there's anything in there, we ask them to spit it out. We advise them of the 18-8002 form, and then we watch them for 15 minutes. During that 15 minute observation time, we ask them, "don't burp, belch, or vomit." And if they do, we have to restart the 15 minutes.
So we sit there and we watch them. And the purpose of that is if there is any residual alcohol in the system, it won't go through the instrument and give a high reading.
Now that's something that started years and years ago. We still stick with it even though our instruments that we use today are so well-calibrated that if they did have residual alcohol in it, it would show that, hey, this doesn't match up with the next test. And the other thing is, in our testing process, we have to be within a percentage where it's a invalid test too, and that would indicate, hey, something's amiss here.
And so you have to have two tests that are within a percentage of each other to get a legal DUI conviction.
Melissa: The things I never knew.
Lt. Crain: Don't go through the process.
Melisa: Yeah. No, I don't plan to. I'm just like... You don't know because it's not an everyday thing that happens.
Lt. Crain: When you talk about lives that are impacted, let me just share this story.
When I was younger, single, I started dating a girl. Found out she was from Southern California when she was growing up. She was adopted to a family in Idaho, and that's how I met her. But what had happened is her mother... now her mother was out Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve down in Southern California and was hit by a drunk driver and killed.
Where it impacted the family on this situation is the father, who was not a person that consumed alcohol, through the stress of the loss of the wife, started drinking. He became a full-fledged alcoholic to the point that Health and Welfare down in California come and took the kids out of the home. And so that's how she got adopted by a family in Idaho.
So that is a great example on how far-reaching this can affect others. Right? So you went from a guy that didn't drink at all, has his wife killed by a DUI driver, and then changes his life to where he becomes an addicted alcoholic.
Melissa: That's just so sad.
I had a thought. It wasn't alcohol, I don't believe, but there was a... I have family friends back home that some nieces and nephews and her sister-in-law were driving, and someone else had made the choice to drive under influence of drugs, and they got in an accident. And people under the influence passed away, but her family was alive, but there was, like, three small children in the car. They were in the hospital for a while, so hospital bills, the finance there impacting that family. And then I think some of their, like, intestines and things—they were operated on.
So now—they all survived, thank heavens—but now they have health issues that will impact them for the rest of their lives because someone made that choice to drive under the influence of drugs.
Lt. Crain: Exactly right. Let's talk about that. More than likely, that person that was driving under the influence of drugs may not have had insurance. And so that financial responsibility falls back on the family. And so, yeah, very disruptive.
Melissa: Was there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to talk about?
Lt. Crain: Hey. The holiday season is upon us.
Please come up with a game plan. If you're struggling in this area to seek help and assistance, there's groups that you can go visit with. There's help out there. It's at the tip of your fingers on your phone, on your computer. Just look for those advocacy groups that are more than willing to reach out and help you.
If you are planning on going out and celebrating the holidays by consuming any kind of substance that will impair your driving, make sure you come up with a game plan long before the event and have a successful holiday season, a safe holiday season for everyone.
Emma: Are there any resources or information you'd like to share to help family members or friends who know someone who might be in danger of driving impaired?
Lt. Crain: Once again, I would just revert back to... If you get on your device, you can locate... Any community has resources to help you. So wherever you live, just get on, research it, get the help, reach out, and it's 24/7, right? It doesn't matter what time of day or night it is. You can reach out, talk to a professional, and receive the help you need.
If you have a family member you can rely on and put your trust into, reach out to them and talk to them as this is building. Right? Don't wait till the last minute in a state of emergency. Start early in the process and talk to people, work through those issues, and find success.
Melissa: We appreciate that you came and shared your knowledge and your experience and your honesty about this topic. And it's a hard topic, but it's important that everyone understands the consequences.
Lt. Crain: And thank you very much for giving us the opportunity. You know, as Idaho State Police, that's part of our goal, right, is to educate and prevent. And so thank you for putting us out in front here and giving us the opportunity to touch a few people.
Emma: If you enjoyed today's episode, please remember to like, subscribe, and rate the Riverbend Awareness Project.
Melissa: If you'd like to reach out to us, you can email us at podcast@riverbendmediagroup.com. Thanks for listening, and join us next time on the Riverbend Awareness Project.