Driver in Bradenton, Florida – A Florida Highway Patrol officer waiting at a red light in a marked police vehicle was struck from behind. Pedro Saravia, 31, was charged with DUI property damage, Florida DUI with personal injury, having no valid driver license and having an open container, as well operating a faulty vehicle.

Driver in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada – An unidentified motorist rear-ended a police cruiser occupied by three Halifax Regional Police officers. Though the cruiser was extensively damaged, none of the officers were injured. They exited the police car and arrested the driver of the other vehicle for drunk driving after he failed a breath test.

Driver in Boise, Idaho – Eric Orlando Garza, 25, was arrested for Idaho DUI after he slammed into two cars; one of them a police cruiser. Police were pursuing the speeding Garza when he struck another car head-on and then rammed the patrol car as he tried to back-up. Neither Garza or the police officer were hurt but the driver of the other vehicle suffered minor injuries.

Judges in Belleville, Illinois – The day before he was to be sworn in as St. Clair County Circuit Judge, Patrick M. Young, 58, was arrested for Illinois DUI. Young was “unstable in his stance, swaying forward and backwards’, but he refused to answer whether he had been drinking. Young’s passenger was St. Clair County Chief Judge Jan Fiss, 64, who also was set to take an oath of office the next morning. Fiss was seen emptying a can of beer and making several attempts to hide the can in an inside coat pocket before throwing it away. When asked what he did with the can he said he was told to “get rid of it.”

Judge in Indianapolis, Indiana – A Marion County superior court judge was arrested for drunk driving. John Hanley left an office Christmas party and nearly hit a police officer while driving home. His blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit and he was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated and public intoxication. Hanley is back on the bench, waiting for a decision from a judicial qualifications commission.

NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France escaped being charged with a Florida DUI last month. He was seen driving erratically on US 1 in Daytona Beach and was followed by a witness. A local woman called 911 and described a motorist driving on curbs, striking a parked car and then scraping a tree. She and her passenger saw the driver

At a press conference this week District Attorneys from across California announced a ‘Make it Home for the Holidays’ campaign. The effort was funded by a $3.3 million grant given to the California District Attorneys Association by the Office of Traffic Safety. It represents the first statewide coordinated campaign to address California DUI during the holidays.

The goal of the three-year grant is to increase the California DUI conviction rate through better training of prosecutors.

California has one of the highest rates in the nation for alcohol related traffic fatalities. State prosecutors would like to see penalties for drunk driving increased. Currently a person can be convicted of three California DUI arrests before being charged with a felony.

The creator of the comic strip Mallard Fillmore, Edward Bruce Tinsley, was arrested in Columbus, Indiana and charged with driving under the influence.

Tinsley was reportedly angry about the Indiana DUI arrest. His blood alcohol content registered 0.14, nearly twice the legal limit. According to the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department it is the 48-year old cartoonist’s second alcohol related arrest in four months. He was charged with general public drunkenness last August.

The politically conservative Mallard Fillmore comic appears in nearly 400 newspapers.

Tinsley posted a $755 bond for the DUI arrest.

Nicole Richie was arrested early Monday morning and is currently under investigation for California DUI. The California Highway Patrol reported that the 25-year old actress failed a field sobriety test and she was arrested suspicion of drunk driving without incident.

Police had received 911 calls about a vehicle matching the description of Richie’s black Mercedes sport utility vehicle heading in the wrong direction on a Burbank freeway. Police found Richie’s SUV stopped in the car pool lane of the freeway.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported that she was tested for drugs and released after posting $15,000 bail.

Richie is the daughter of singer Lionel Richie and she starred in the ‘The Simple Life’ with Paris Hilton.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) unveiled a new television commercial encouraging safe driving during the upcoming holidays. In the animated spot, Santa’s reindeer are grounded for drinking on Christmas Eve and they are replaced with four yellow taxis. The theme recommends that holiday party-goers assign a designated driver or use a cab to avoid a Texas DWI arrest.

“Drunk driving will ruin the holidays for hundreds of families,” said Carlos Lopez, TxDOT’s traffic operations director. “We can’t say it enough: plan ahead and plan not to get behind the wheel if you’ve been drinking.” The holiday ad campaign and enforcement of Texas DWI laws are attributed to declining vehicular fatalities in Texas. Statistics show that 135 fewer people died from accidents involving alcohol in 2005 than the year before.

This is the ninth year that TxDOT has run a holiday campaign against drinking and driving. The television spots are complemented with radio commercials based on popular Christmas carols, billboards and bar coasters.

The $500,000 DWI prevention campaign runs throughout December.

Deltha O’Neal, cornerback for the NFL Cincinnati Bengals, was arrested early Saturday morning and charged with Ohio DUI. O’Neal was stopped at a sobriety checkpoint around 12:30 am and police noticed the smell of alcohol. According to State Highway Patrol, a breathalyzer test revealed a blood alcohol content of 0.10, above the legal limit of 0.08.

O’Neal is the eighth player from the Bengals squad to be arrested this year, and the second in a just a week. Reggie McNeal was recently arrested in Houston and charged with resisting arrest.

O’Neal was designated as inactive by the team following the DUI arrest. He had missed the last three games due to a shoulder injury, though he was not on the team’s injury report Friday and was expected to play Sunday in a game against the Oakland Raiders. The seven-year veteran led the league interceptions last year and was selected for the AFC Pro Bowl team.

O’Neal is to appear in Clermont County, Ohio Municipal Court this week.

DUILaws.com thought readers would be interested in this opinion found on the web.

MADD uses bogus stats to chip away our rights

by James Nesci

MADD is using bogus statistics to push its agenda of prohibition. It first tried to make people register beer kegs like guns. Now it wants all first-time DUI offenders to be required to have ignition interlock devices.

The group’s intermediate goal is to have all new cars equipped with devices from the factory. Ultimately, MADD would have us repeat the failed social experiment called Prohibition.

Don’t believe the hype. MADD falsely claims that there are 13,000 yearly "drunk driving" deaths. MADD uses statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which recorded over 13,000 "alcohol-related traffic fatalities," not drunken-driving deaths. An "alcohol-related traffic fatality" includes drunken drivers, drunken pedestrians run over by sober drivers, and traffic fatalities with any measurable amount of alcohol in the deceased’s system. A measurable amount is 0.002 percent, which is one sip of light beer for a 175-pound man.

MADD attributes an average yearly decrease in drunken-driving fatalities to strict enforcement of DUI laws and ignition interlock devices. While this may be partially true, these are not the only reasons. Vehicles have become progressively more safe.

Thus, what would have been a true drunken-driving fatality years ago may now be a non-injury accident due solely to a more safe vehicle. The collective reasons for the statistical drop in fatalities cannot be separated.

The original intent behind drunken-driving laws has been lost with the advent of arbitrary laws that make it illegal to drive with a particular blood alcohol concentration. The original limits were lowered from 0.15 percent to 0.10 percent, then to 0.08 percent. Some states, such as Colorado, have a 0.05 percent limit for DWAI — driving with ability impaired.

MADD is pushing to make it illegal for one to consume any amount of alcohol, then drive. Ignition interlocks will not let you drive at a 0.03 percent blood-alcohol concentration — that’s less than one glass of wine for a 110-pound woman.

Ignition interlocks will drastically increase the cost of a new vehicle. The device may only cost about a thousand dollars, but when we shift the responsibility of sober driving from the driver to the car manufacturer and one of these devices fails, who will be liable?

Will your insurance company raise the rates for any car that does not have a device? Will MADD send a taxi and a bottle of ice water to you when you are stranded halfway between Yuma and Gila Bend in late July because the device malfunctioned and shut down your car for no reason?

The bottom line is that MADD is attempting to make legal behavior illegal with no rational basis for doing so. It is pushing for its goal of complete prohibition by chipping away at our constitutional freedoms by using bogus statistics and emotional arguments.

If you think that you have had too much to drink to drive, then don’t drive. The danger to ourselves created by drunken drivers on the road pales in comparison with the danger created by the loss of our constitutional rights at the hands of MADD.

I think I’ll walk in New Mexico – Bobby Miranda, of Las Vegas, New Mexico, was the driver of a city Safe Ride van. He was placed on administrative leave, and expected to be fired, after being arrested for New Mexico DWI while in the van. A background check by a local news station showed two previous DWI convictions, and possibly a third, though his employer said none of that information was available to them at the time Miranda was hired.

Leading the way in California – Police responded to calls of a vehicle being driven repeatedly around the block with its lights on. Despite flashing police lights and wailing sirens, suspected drunk driver Charles Evans, 33, sped off and refused to stop. Having his vehicle tapped in the rear by the police cruiser didn’t stop him. He only came to a stop after pulling into his own driveway. Evans was arrested for failure to stop for a police officer and California DUI.

Self Serve in California – Mary McGill drove to a California Highway Patrol office to pick up a traffic report. She displayed signs of intoxication and smelled of alcohol so officers administered a field sobriety test. She failed the test and was arrested. The report McGill was seeking was for an accident for which she had also been arrested…for drunk driving.

There goes Santa Claus in South Carolina – David Allen Rodgers, 42, was arrested for drunk driving in Anderson, South Carolina…while pulling the ‘Steppin Out Dance Studio’ float in a Christmas parade. Rodgers. He pulled out to pass another float and suddenly took off. A float passenger dialed 911 as Rodgers sped down Main Street and he ran a red light. Rodgers did not stop for three miles and then fought with arresting officers. An open container of alcohol was found in his truck. Rodgers faces more than three dozen charges, including South Carolina DUI, assaulting officers and 18 counts of kidnapping.

Perhaps lost in translation from Moscow – A man stopped by police in Eastern Russia admitted that he had drunk a half-liter of grain alcohol. He was charged with drunk driving and while police were filling out paperwork to confiscate the car, the driver tried to swallow his keys. The man then bit an officer who tried to retrieve them. The man was identified only as ‘Muscovite’.

Raunchy rocker and former Kurt Cobain squeeze Courtney Love has come forward with a reason for Paris Hilton’s recent California DUI arrest.

The 25-year old heiress was stopped by Los Angeles police September 7 for driving erratically while on a late night burger run. She was charged with driving under the influence after reportedly failing a breath test. At the Billboard Music Awards last Monday, Love told E!News that, “Paris is my friend. She really is well mannered. When she got arrested that night for DUI is was because we were drag racing.”

We can only wonder how that revelation will help. And what does it mean when someone like Courtney Love describes you as ‘well mannered’?

Hilton faces up to six months in jail and a fine of $1000 if convicted of first offense California DUI.