How Not to Choose Your Designated Driver

When picking a designated driver for a night of drinking and entertainment, here are some handy tips on whom it would be wise to eliminate:

• Someone who has already been drinking, and
• Who has also downed a double dose of narcotics, and
• Who was convicted of drunken driving within the past year, and
• Who is under a .02 blood alcohol restriction as a result of said conviction, and
• Who is required to use an ignition interlock and doesn't have one, and
• Is prone to drive at nearly twice the speed limit.

Any one of those factors might factor a person out of most people's safe driving plans. Add them all together, and you have a recipe for trouble.

According to a police report:

At 2:51 a.m. Saturday, a 38-year-old West Allis man was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, second offense, after he was stopped in the 5800 block of Blue Mound Road for speeding.

A patrol officer reported that he was just pulling up to Blue Mound on 74th Street when a Chevy Suburban whizzed by, clocked at 54 mph in the 30-mph zone.

The officer smelled alcohol when he spoke to the driver, but the man claimed he’d had only one drink. His three passengers said they had been drinking more heavily at Brooklyn's Adult Night Club in West Allis, and that the man at the wheel was their designated driver.

They had each downed four shots of liquor, they said. Their driver, they said, had only one.

The officer checked records and learned the driver had been convicted of OWI in July and was still under a .02 blood alcohol restriction and an order to have an ignition interlock device on any vehicle he drove. There was none on the Suburban he was driving.

When asked if he had any ailments or was on any medications that would prevent him from performing sobriety tests, the man said he had a bad back and had “popped two Percocets” a couple of hours before. Percocet is a prescription combination of aspirin and the opiate narcotic Oxycodone. 

He performed poorly on several field sobriety tests and was arrested. He agreed to a blood draw and was given a May 31 court date.

Woman finds some kind words for her captors

At 1:48 a.m. Sunday, a 32-year-old Milwaukee woman was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, first offense, after she drove over a large curb, hit an electrical box and hung up her car over the sidewalk while trying to leave the parking lot at the Walgreens at 2275 N. Mayfair Rd.

A police officer called to the scene said the driver could barely keep her eyes open while he was speaking to her. She was unsteady and uncooperative during field sobriety tests and finally refused to finish. She also refused to give a breath sample.

But the arresting officer noted that after booking, the woman admitted she was drunk and thanked the police for being so nice to her.