WSP holds weekend DUI patrols

GRANT COUNTY — Even on slick winter roads, Trooper Ryan Raymond has to drive fast to get to the scene of a drunk driver.

It's Friday night, and Raymond is on patrol in the Othello and Royal City areas, part of Washington State Patrol emphasis to get drunk drivers off the road. It's before 10 p.m. when Raymond gets the call, Grant County Reserve Sheriff's Deputies have responded to the scene of a drunken driver on State Road 281 near George. The driver nearly struck one of the reserve deputies while weaving his vehicle between both lanes of the roadway.

The man has driven his car off the road at milepost 3 by the time Raymond arrives on scene. Officers can tell the man is intoxicated by the overwhelming odor of alcohol and the man's inability to even stand up steadily. As Raymond pats the man down to make sure he isn't carrying weapons, the man falls down next to the patrol car.

A portable breath test puts this man's breath alcohol concentration at .219, almost three times the legal limit of .08, and he is taken into custody.

Troopers were working DUI emphasis patrols throughout the nation this weekend. Friday was the "Night of 1,000 Stars," and WSP Sgt. Kurt Adkinson says the emphasis name is so-called as an honor to all the

Washington State Patrol officers who take drunk drivers off the road. Adkinson, speaking from inside the WSP office in Moses Lake prior to the start of Raymond's patrol, has five of his eight troopers from the Moses Lake WSP detachment on patrol for this emphasis.

The drunk driver refuses to take an official breathalizer test. Raymond says that if a driver blows over .08 on a breathalizer, they lose their license for 90 days. A driver will lose his or her license for a year however, if they refuse to take the breathalizer. This is a moot point in this case, for the man doesn't have a valid driver's license.

While Friday was a special DUI enforcement emphasis day, Adkinson says the WSP has emphasis patrols out essentially for the entire months of November and December.

The night is a lighter than normal one during holiday season for Raymond. He later arrests one more person for drunken driving, after the driver is stopped for expired license tabs. Raymond says he looks for indicators, such as out tail lights or speed and lane violations, to determine whether or not to pull over a driver.

Raymond hopes his efforts put a damper on accidents, and he says his goal is make sure that every driver makes it to their destination. Alcohol diminishes a person's reaction time, and driving sober prevents any potentially fatal collisions that could result because a driver has been drinking. A friend of Raymond's was killed in a head-on collision by a drunk driver when Raymond was in high school, and another friend is still in a wheelchair from that same accident.

"People just don't understand the kind of impacts that they have when they get behind the wheel when they've been drinking," he says.

The WSP has four missions: to enforce the laws in cases of aggressive drivers, drunk drivers, speed limits and seat belt laws. The seat belt law is a newer one, and has only been on the books for the last few

years.

"You work out here, and you see a few things, and you learn to appreciate the seat belt laws," Raymond says.

Raymond has no specific place that he is required to patrol each night, and he has no quotas he has to meet. He says he has leeway in every situation that doesn't involve a criminal offense.

"Wherever you want to go and be active, you can go," he says.

The territory is more than familiar for Raymond, who grew up in Moses Lake. His family also still lives in the area. Raymond has been with the WSP for three-and-a-half years and came home after finishing a tenure at Washington State University, both in the classroom and on the football field.

Raymond says that on some weekend nights he could charge three to five people with drunken driving, while he may not have any DUI arrests on other nights. Not everyone who is charged with drunken driving goes to jail though.

"If they're a cooperative first-time offenders, we'll typically make arrangements for them to go home," Adkinson explains. Adkinson says that troopers make sure that a DUI offender who is released with family

or friends does not get behind the wheel for the rest of the night. But if a drunk driver has had a previous alcohol offense, or if that driver is verbally or physically abusive, Adkinson says that driver is going to jail.

"We're not here to cause people grief," Raymond says, "We're here to keep people safe."

Officers also don't charge every person they stop for possible drunken driving. Raymond pulls over a driver this night for a lane violation outside the Ephrata Wal-Mart. The driver is given tests to determine his

sobriety, and is soon sent on his way.

"Just because somebody is out on the side of the road doing a sobriety test, doesn' t mean they're going to be arrested for DUI," Raymond says.

In another situation, Raymond pulls over a woman for driving six miles per hour over the speed limit on a slick Highway 17. The driver is given a portable breath test, and blows a .031. The woman is allowed to

continue on her way, but Raymond says he has made her think about her actions.

A trooper's job, Raymond says, is to make sure a driver is fit to drive before he or she returns to the highway. Raymond does look for indicators during each traffic stop, and he will ask the driver if they have been drinking if he smells the odor of alcohol. If that driver has difficulty performing simple tasks like getting their insurance out of the glove box, then passersby may later see that driver performing a walk and turn

on the side of the road.

Raymond says the majority of drivers he arrests for drunken driving are actually thankful and learn a lesson from the experience.

"It's not a life-ending thing," he says, "It's a mistake someone makes in their life and it's an error in judgment on their part."

Raymond's hope is to grab drivers on slower roads before they move onto the fast highways. If the driver is having a hard enough time driving at 25 miles per hour, he says they will have a much harder time at double that speed.

"We're out here to make people safe so everyone has an enjoyable holiday," Raymond says. "DUI enforcement is just part of our job."