A pint half-full

I was in a faraway land known as the Midwest enjoying my Labor Day weekend when the Pasadena Police Department conducted its sixth DUI saturation enforcement detail of 2008.
How nice to know that while I was lollygagging around reading books, overindulging in various libations and generally being nothing more than a gluttonous louse, our local law enforcement was laboring to keep Pasadenans safe.

The operation ran from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. Aug 29, a Friday. Incidentally, a DUI saturation enforcement detail is different from a DUI checkpoint. Unlike checkpoints, there is no predetermined location where cops screen all drivers passing through a particular location. Instead, according to Lt. Phulante Riddle, DUI saturation details involve officers — this time 14 — patrolling areas with high numbers of restaurants and bars, including Old Pasadena, South Lake Avenue, the east end of Colorado Boulevard and the edges of San Gabriel.

The end result? According to Riddle, 11 DUI arrests were made, with all 11 perps (oh, I love using that word) found to have a blood alcohol content (BAC) above the legal limit of .08.

Obviously it’s discouraging that with all we know about the dangers of hitting the bottle before driving, people still decide that they’ll be the exception to the proven statistics and hop willy-nilly into the driver’s seat (regardless of how many cocktails they’ve had). But all the same, I’ve become evermore determined to look at the bright side of things these days. 

So, in keeping with my “pint half-full” mentality, I was pleased to hear good news from Riddle. Not one alcohol-related automobile accident was reported in Pasadena on that Friday night. Surely this is cause for a (nonalcoholic, natch) celebration, n’est-ce pas?

Maybe celebrating the fact that we caught nearly a dozen drunk drivers is a little deranged, but still, no one was injured, or worse, killed, and I’m all about celebrating the little victories.

Now on the flip side (and to present both sides of whatever argument it is I’m trying to win), I’m willing to bet that on any given Friday before a holiday weekend more than 11 intoxicated people in Pasadena foolishly put the pedal to the metal in their cars. This particular Friday was undoubtedly no exception.

It’s also probable that quite a few of them somehow managed to avoid accidents or injury even when driving with one eye closed. With all that said, though, even if our PD isn’t catching all of the cockeyed drivers, they are catching some. And that deserves recognition, especially when you consider that this DUI saturation detail came at a relatively low cost to taxpayers, yet may have helped save some of their lives. Simple math (which is the only kind I’m capable of grasping) will prove my point.

According to Riddle, the total cost of staging this was roughly $10,000 — money acquired from a grant awarded to the Pasadena Police Department by the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Riddle says the minimum financial consequences one can expect when convicted of driving under the influence come to $13,500. That figure includes, among other things, the minimum fine of $486, vehicle towing and storage, running another $187, and alcohol education courses, which cost roughly $500. Then there are the other fines and penalties, including attorney fees (which can vary immensely), booking and photographing fees, DMV reissuing charges, not to mention the long-term penalties (such as an increase in auto insurance, which may cost more than $8,000 over a 10-year period). The potential loss of a job would also probably be a little costly.

Phew. All these numbers have now made me a little loopy. But even if very little of that money actually finds its way directly back into local coffers, for $10,000 Pasadena’s finest may have saved multiple lives, which are, well, priceless.

For that I give a big, old pat on the back to our police Department for working hard, even while the rest of us were hardly working. 

Contact Jen Hadley at jmhadley624@yahoo.com.