When John Orosco decided to drive his blue Dodge Daytona on April 11, 1997, it was a bad idea.

At 1:36 a.m., Ames police saw Orosco swerve right and strike a curb.

When they pulled him over, he admitted he had drunk several beers and mixed drinks, causing him to blow .173 percent on his blood alcohol breathalyzer test.

The officers then arrested him for operating while intoxicated.

Orosco’s story is not a new one; in fact, it is a typical occurrence in Ames.

From Jan. 1, 1997 to Dec. 31, 1997, a total of 217 people were arrested for OWI in the city of Ames.

Of these arrests, 101 occurred in the area bounded by Wallace Drive/Beach Avenue, Storm Street, State Avenue and Pammel Drive.

In the heart of Campustown, there was a total of 25 OWI arrests.

According to Sgt. Randy Kessel of the Ames Police Department, the large number of Campustown OWI arrests is not a coincidence.

“When we pull over people we ask them where they were drinking at. They will tell you that they were drinking downtown or Campustown,” he said.

But not all arrests are made due to the location of the bars, Kessel said.

“The bulk of our arrests, at least 50 percent, are called in,” he said. “The cell phone has certainly affected us. People will call and say, ‘I’m following someone who is driving erratically,’ and we will go and check it out.”

In addition, drive-thru restaurants will also call in unsafe drivers they have witnessed, he said.

To make an OWI arrest, police officers must first notice a traffic violation.

According to Cpl. Rollie Link of the APD, police tend to find more traffic violations in crowded areas.

“We go to look for traffic violations, and we go where traffic is congested. When pulling someone over, you have to build a case for suspicion of OWI,” he said. “The officer has to observe traffic violations, and once the driver is pulled over, the officer must have suspicion of alcohol consumption.”

The top reason cited for the initial pull-over in 1997 OWI arrest reports, at 26.7 percent, was weaving, crossing the center line and hitting the curb.

Though weaving and crossing the center line may seem like harmless driving mistakes during daylight hours, Kessel said, there is a stronger suspicion that the weaving driver is drunk when observed during the evening hours.

“About 80 to 85 percent of the cases that we investigate at night have alcohol involvement,” he said.

Kessel said during the day there are more elderly drivers, but in the evening police are more alert to the cues of intoxicated drivers.

“We do have daytime drinking and driving,” he said. “It’s not a hard and fast rule that officers know people are drinking and driving at night.”

The second and third reasons for initial pull-over are speeding, at 20.2 percent, and accidents, at 14.7 percent.

The latter is a very dangerous situation, according to Kessel.

Arrests for OWI occur primarily during peak bar closing hours.

The hour between 1 and 2 a.m. was the hour that most arrests occurred, at 33 percent. Second was the hour between 2 and 3 a.m., when 30 percent of OWI arrests occured.

Arrests decreased drastically, at only 11 percent, between the hours of 3 and 4 a.m.

Only four percent of all arrests occurred during the pre-bar closing hour of 12 a.m. and 1 a.m.

According to Kessel, bar closing is definitely the reason for the arrest boom during the hour between 1 a.m. to 2 a.m.

“It’s usually last call, and the bar owners are getting people out,” he said. “We attempt to have more cars in the area during bar close.”

DPS also assists the Ames police in locating drunk drivers in the Campustown area.

Blood alcohol content (BAC) for OWI arrest drivers in 1997 averaged .158, the department’s statistics show.

Iowa’s current legal level of intoxication is .10. How much alcohol it takes to reach .10 varies with a person’s size, weight and alcohol tolerance, but according to Link, most OWI drivers in Ames are clearly over their limit.

“By the time the driver reaches .158, there are more signs of drunkenness. The signs are more obvious; slurred speech, watery eyes and the smell of alcohol is more apparent,” Link said.

The BAC levels in 1997 OWI arrests ranged from .10 to .302.

“I think we constantly are seeing (BAC levels) go up. It’s frightening to see it go up,” Kessel said.

Of the 217 arrests, 36 of those refused to take a BAC test.

“The driver can refuse to take a blood alcohol test, but a refusal equals a revocation of their driver’s license for 180 days,” Link said. “Some people are driving under suspension or without a driver’s license so that isn’t important to them.”

According to Kessel, many of the higher blood alcohol cases involve frequent offenders.

“When people are attempting to get behind the wheel at three times the limit they are usually second- or third-time offenders,” he said.

Punishment for those convicted of OWI can mean serious fines and jail time.

A first-time offender is required to spend at least 48 hours, but no more than one year, in county jail, according to the Iowa Code.

Fines for first-time offenders are not less than $500 but not more than $1,000.

A first-time offense also is considered a serious misdemeanor.

Fines for second-time offenders are not less than $1,000 but not more than $5,000. A second OWI offense is considered an aggravated misdemeanor.

The punishment for third-time offenders increases with a jail term of at least 30 days and not more than 5 years.

Minimum fines are $2,500 and not more than $7,500. A third-time offense for OWI is considered a class “D” felony.

According to Story County Civil Assistant Rod Reynolds, the fines assigned by the court are only a fraction of what OWI offenders may have to pay.

“You have to include court appointed costs, which range from $100 to $500, a 30 percent surcharge, court costs that total $50, plus the cost to get your license reinstated and the costs related to your increased insurance rates,” he said.

Reynolds said most first-time OWI offenders end up paying at least $1,500 before the process is over.

Although Reynolds said he hasn’t heard of someone getting refused for a job due to an OWI charge, employers of those charged with OWI will always know the employee’s history.

“If you get convicted of [an] OWI, forever after when you apply for a job and they ask you if you’ve ever been convicted of a crime, you have to put that down,” he said.

Despite the fact that more than half of the 1997 Ames OWI arrests occurred in the Campustown area, involved high levels of intoxication and occurred after bar close, Kessel said Iowa State students do not comprise the majority of OWI arrests in Ames.

“We have a blend,” he said. “Our arrests reflect the cross-section of our population.”