Dear Editor,

I urge you to write a follow-up to your article in the weekend edition on driving under the influence. Write about the effects of alcohol on the brain and publish the statistics on the number of accidents caused by people driving under the influence. Alcohol influences the perception in subtle ways such as response time, speed and distance perception, focus and concentration, visual acuity, and many other ways that we don’t realize when we are under the influence. Drunk driving causes terrible tragedies. It may cause the death of a father whose family depends upon him or a member of the military who has just returned home having escaped injury or death in Afghanistan; a pregnant woman could lose her baby in an accident, a child could be crippled. I wish you had known Veronica (Ronnie), a beautiful but sad young woman who died a few years ago in her mid-thirties. Veronica was in a car with her family when she was a baby. Their car was hit by a person driving under the influence of alcohol. Her brain and nerves were damaged and she was crippled for life. If you had known her, I don’t think you would be writing an article in the context of how to avoid charges if caught driving under the influence. DUI is against the law, and there is good reason for that. You got it right when you said: “Ultimately, the best thing for an individual to do is avoid drinking and driving altogether.” I hope to see an article soon with research on the effects of alcohol on one’s perception and the statistics on accidents, so that people will know first-hand why zero alcohol is the only acceptable level.

Barbara Vaughn
UA Alumna

Online comments

In response to “Police, lawyers give advice on how to act in DUI, MIP situations” (by Alison Dorf, Feb. 22):

Or maybe you could just be smart enough to not get into a situation like this in the first place? Why is there such a stunning dearth of students whose thought processes don’t revolve around getting blackout drunk all the time? It’s absolutely pathetic that an article like this is even necessary and reflects very poorly on Arizona’s student body. People need to grow up.

— Kevin Wos

There are other good sources on how to act/behave in this situation, not hard to find either. One source points out (somewhat contrary to this article) it may be smarter to assert you have had nothing to drink, ‘No officer, nothing tonight.’ If you admit you’ve had a couple wines with dinner, the police drill then virtually requires them to test you. The DUI lawyers are very expensive, you bet. Somebody has to pay for their nice office. Avoid participating in that.

— TomTom

Putting yourself in the situation to be charged with a DUI and having to pay fines and lawyer fees are some of the consequences that you accept when you get behind the wheel after drinking. If you don’t want to go through all that, don’t do it.

— Brian