Ongoing consequences

Around 2 a.m. Sunday, June 19, 2004, James Sherman was driving home from a friend’s kegger in Madrid.

He was on Lincoln Way when an Ames Police officer pulled him over for speeding. Sherman, senior in biology, had been drinking at the party but says he didn’t think he was very drunk. The officer had a different opinion.

Ames Police Cmdr. Randy Kessel says speeding is one of the biggest clues that a driver may be intoxicated because drinking lowers a driver’s perception rate. This was the case with Sherman.

Sherman was asked to step out of his vehicle and perform sobriety tests.

“I did them all, and failed them all horribly,” he says.

The tests made him realize he was more drunk than he thought, and the Breathalyzer test revealed a blood alcohol of .149, almost double the legal limit of .08 for drivers 21 and older.

Sherman says he was taken to the Ames Police Department and was released Sunday morning with an OWI charge — Operating While Intoxicated. During the course of the night, Sherman says he couldn’t sleep because he was wondering how his parents would take the news.

Although Sherman was nervous to tell his parents about his OWI, he says they took the news pretty well.

“I should have known they would be really supportive,” he says. “They have always been supportive when I made mistakes. I’m pretty sure they were disappointed, but they knew I knew how bad I screwed up so they didn’t pile on to how bad I was feeling at the time.”

His next step was to appear in court. Sherman says he knew he had broken the law and pleaded guilty to the charges.

Sherman says the minimum penalty is a $1,000 fine and two nights in jail, but because it was his first offense he asked for a deferred judgment, which is sometimes an option for first-time offenders whose blood alcohol count is less than .15. Sherman says the judge can reject the request if he or she thinks the offender are getting off easy and not going to learn your lesson.

“There is no fine with a deferred judgment, so I didn’t have to pay the $1,000,” he says. “Instead of the two days in jail, I got 60 hours of community service.”

Sherman says part of his penalty was also one year of probation, prohibiting him from drinking or going to bars and house parties. He also had to have a substance abuse evaluation, and the Department of Transportation suspended his license for six months.

Although six months have passed, Sherman is still without a license. He says this is because of a $200 retrieval fee. Also, he says, he is required to pay for high-risk car insurance for two years once he starts driving again.

“I can have it back, but I can’t afford it,” Sherman says. “I couldn’t even buy all my books at first when the semester started.”

He says he is going to wait until he has a job after graduation to get a car, and for the time being takes the bus.

Some consequences have been harder to cope with than others, Sherman says.

“The whole probation thing has been hard,” he says. “Before, I would go out with my friends, but I haven’t seen them in a while. It’s been rough not having a social life on the weekend.”

Although some on probation may take risks and go to the bar occasionally, Sherman says he is not taking any chances.

“I haven’t even tried to go to a bar — there are just too many things I can see going wrong,” he says. “I waited until I was 21 to be legal; I can wait however many months to be legal again.”

Looking back on his experience, Sherman says it is ironic that he drove home that night.

“Before then, my friends had always known me for walking home,” he says. “I could have slept in my van, which would have been the smartest thing, but I didn’t because I obviously wasn’t thinking straight.”

Sherman says the grand total of fees has reached nearly $1,000 and “there is no way I’m doing that again.”

Lesson learned? “Yes, lesson learned.”

Learning from mistakes

Jennifer Warner used to drink and drive — she thought that if she just took back roads and didn’t speed, no harm would be done.

Looking back today in disbelief, Warner says she used to think she was a good drunken driver — but that changed when she was pulled over for running over a curb at 1:30 a.m. on a cold night in January 2003.

“I went to the bar with a bunch of friends and had been drinking a lot,” says Warner, senior in art and design. “I had just turned 21 a month prior, so I was on a drinking kick.”

Though Warner lived only a couple of blocks from Campustown and normally walked home from the bars, she says that night her car was parked in a nearby lot. She didn’t want to leave her car there overnight — plus it was cold out and she is a self-admitted “wuss” — so instead, Warner drove the three blocks home.

She says she was in her driveway when a Department of Public Safety officer pulled her over and identified her as a drunken driver.

She was asked to perform the standard sobriety tests before taking a Breathalyzer test. She says her four-inch heels made walking in a straight line difficult.

Warner says she blew more than .10 and was taken to the Armory and put into a stainless steel cell with a concrete bed and no pillow for the night. Warner says she stayed up all night thinking about what to say to her parents and trying to sober up.

In court, Warner says she was hoping deferred judgment would be granted and decided to say a few words on her behalf.

“They ask you if you have anything to say for yourself, so I stood up and said I was really sorry, and that I thought I was lucky no one had gotten hurt and I learned my lesson,” she says.

The judge gave her a long lecture about how he wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t make the same mistake again, she says, but in the end did give her deferred judgment.

“I think he wanted to make me sweat, and rightfully so,” she says.

Warner was put on probation for one year, but because the judge wasn’t convinced she had learned her lesson, she had to also go through about nine weeks of alcohol treatment.

Part of the probation prohibited her from going to bars or drinking, but Warner admits she sometimes broke that rule.

“I still went, but I cut back on how much I went and how much I drank when I went,” she says. “By the end of the year, it just became routine to not go out as much. Plus, I was doing alcohol treatment classes where I wasn’t supposed to drink at all, so for a few months I didn’t go out at all.”

One rule Warner says she never broke was the driving rule. She went without a license for nine months and says she never drove once, even leaving her car with her parents so she wouldn’t be tempted to drive. Looking back on her experience, Warner says she has a new outlook on drinking.

“I think it changed my attitude, and my lifestyle is different,” she says.

“I don’t drink and drive because the consequences are pretty shitty. Every time I drink, I think about it — it’s been two years and I still think about it every time.”

Warner says getting caught was inevitable because of her prior behavior of occasionally drinking and driving.

“It was something I had done before, and probably would have continued to do had I not gotten caught,” she said. “Of course, I wish I had learned it in a different way, but nobody got hurt. It was good timing. I had just turned 21, and I was drinking a lot. Getting an OWI was a reality check.”