24-year-old learns the real price of drinking and driving
Brittany D’alesandro | Contributor
Almost two years after Jonathon Harman was first charged with driving while intoxicated, the 24-year-old is still paying the price for a decision he made.
“I shouldn’t have been driving, but it was three o’clock in the morning, and I didn’t want to wake anybody up to drive me home,” Harman said, recalling the April night of his arrest.
Harman went to Old Town that night, followed by a game of beer pong at an after-party at The Grove apartments. During his drive home to Burkburnett, another driver called in to the police station to report him for “swerving all over the road.”
“They had a cop follow me for a couple of miles just to make sure that they were all talking about the same person,” Harman said. “And after a couple of minutes, they realized they were.”
The police arrested him for drunken driving and administered a sobriety test on the spot.
“I blew .179,” Harman said. “There was no question, I was drunk.”
His blood alcohol content registered 2.2 times more than the legal limit of .08 in the state of Texas.
Harman still can’t remember making the drive that night.
The first fine he paid of $850 dealt only with the DWI offense. He then had to pay a fine of $150, and a third of $250 to have his license reinstated during the 45-day period in between his offense and court date.
“I paid over $1,200 in fines before I even sought a lawyer,” Harman said. “And I paid my lawyer $2,500.”
Overall, Harman spent $3,750 for his drunken driving incident. Statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that drunk driving costs each adult in this country about $500 per year, however Harman has paid and will continue to spend $1,250 a year.
But he isn’t the only one paying for his mistake.
Taxpayers are funding the aftermath of every single driver that makes a decision like Harman’s.
According to a study conducted at West Virginia University, taxpayers and the government spend $51 billion on alcohol-related incidents.
“You know those signs you seen on the side of the highway that say, ‘DUI, You can’t afford it?’ Well, you really can’t,” Harman said.
He has had to take unpaid days off from work to meet with his lawyer, go to court and pay fees.
“This whole thing has cost me more than a dang license,” he said. “I have had to work harder to make more money to pay the fines, I have to rely on other people to take me to and from work and I can’t operate the rig without a drivers license.”
Harman works for a well-servicing company that keeps his money and time tied up.
“I am lucky to have a boss who allows me to take the time off,” he said. “We work hard for what we earn, but it’s worth it so I can pay this lawyer off.”
While driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol is costly to individuals, it is also costly to the U.S. economy generally.
The N.H.T.S.A. found that “alcohol-related crashes account for 22 percent of the total economic cost” of operating the highways safely. This includes the cost of those that are fatally wounded from alcohol-related incidents and those that suffer from non-fatal injuries.
The report of Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes also supplements data with information as to why it costs our economy money every time someone gets a DWI, or threatens another life by climbing behind the wheel drunk. It states that the economic cost is influenced by three factors:
· When alcohol is involved in any incident, the possible severity of any outcomes or injuries is greatly increased.
· It costs organizations and companies money when productivity goes down because of the inability to get work, the lack of a license to operate machinery and days missed for booking or court. When it costs a company money-it costing the economy (you) money.
· Medical care is expensive, whether paid for by yourself , your insurance provider, or through some type of governmental assistance.
In short, according to the NHTSA, driving under the influence costs the American economy “nearly $40 billion annually.”
To put into perspective, Texas alone pays for nearly $20 million of the total amount of each DUI- and DWI-related incident, 3.4 percent of each resident’s personal income.
State and federal regulations that have been put into place in order to decrease DUI- and DWI-related incidents are not meant to have drivers’ accounts strapped.
“I get why they make getting a DWI so expensive,” Harman said. “I made my own mistake, and I have to learn from it.”
Although Harman did not cause an accident or injure any other drivers the night he received his DWI, he still pays for the consequences daily.
“I have been saving money for two years now, because I have to be able afford my annual surcharge plus all my other living expenses,” he said.
Overall, it is expensive when you are charged for your first DWI, let alone a second.
When a second offense is charged, a driver may be sentenced up to two years in jail and have their licenses suspended for just as long. The annual surcharge can double, and offenders are required to pay each year for three years, just to retain a driver’s license.
Upon a third offense-which is a third degree felony-a driver can receive two to 10 years in jail. Not to mention that a DWI will stay on a citizen’s driving record for the rest of their life.
Austin Gillis, a major in mass communication had a similar experience. December 24, 2012 he was arrested after “losing control and crashing into a brick wall.”
The police arrested him and charged him with a DWI after giving him a sobriety test without his permission.
“They made me take it, and then took me to jail,” Gillis said. “I felt like I had been in jail forever, and it had only been two days.”
After spending Christmas Eve and half of Christmas day, he paid $166 of a total $750 bond to be released by department.
“I found a pretty good lawyer right away, he only charged me $600 and I will probably end up paying an additional $600 after my court date,” Gillis said.
Right now, his license is suspended until August 22, 2013, after his court date, he will receive instructions for paying his surcharges and other DWI fees.
“I have definitely learned my limit. I might have one, maybe two beers if I’m playing pool or something, but never more than that. If I do, I just call a cab, I have pretty much thought this through—this is a first and last for me,” Gillis said.
Now, Gillis says his goal is to “stay the straight and narrow.”
Both he and Harman chose to drive under the influence, costly decisions they deal with on a daily basis.
“It’s really a bad thing, when you realize you have spent way too much money on alcohol, but it’s on alcohol you haven’t had in two years,” Harman said.
“I may have made a really expensive mistake, but at least I learned not to get behind the wheel after a couple of beers. One night was definitely not worth all the money I wasted.”