‘Pickled’ Driver Arrested for DUI
Posted on July 23, 2008
Filed Under Criminal Law, DUI, Law, News |
With a blood-alcohol level of 0.491%, Stanley Kobierowski should have been dead, not behind the wheel of a car. But that’s where Rhode Island state troopers found him yesterday after he drove into a highway message board on I-95 in Providence. Kobierowski, 34, earns the ignominious honor of having the highest blood-alcohol level ever recorded in Rhode Island for someone who wasn’t dead.
In California, a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 is considered driving drunk. A level of 0.4 is comatose and 0.5 is fatal. Death from alcohol poisoning is just one of the risks of drinking too much. Get behind the wheel of a car and your risk of killing yourself or an innocent bystander increases dramatically.
Every year, an estimated 1.5 million U.S. drivers are charged with driving under the influence (DUI) or driving while intoxicated (DWI). In 2006, 13,470 people died in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver who had a blood-alcohol level of 0.08% or higher. Fully 32% of the total traffic fatalities in 2006 involved a driver charged with DUI or DWI. Alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes where the driver had a blood-alcohol level of at least 0.01% killed another 16,005 people in 2006. Seventeen percent of the children age 14 and younger who died in motor vehicle crashes in 2006 were killed by an alcohol-impaired driver. Half of those children were riding in vehicles driven by an adult, often a parent or relative, with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 or higher.
Alcohol and driving don’t mix. Being charged with DUI or DWI is a serious crime. If convicted of DUI or DWI, you can face heavy fines and penalties, loss of driving privileges and even be sentenced to serve jail time. If you are driving drunk and cause an accident in which someone dies, you can be charged with vehicular manslaughter. Vehicular manslaughter is an extremely serious criminal matter in California that requires the immediate professional assistance of an experienced vehicular manslaughter defense attorney. Penalties can be dire.
-LegalPro
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