Going to Court Tomorrow - Witness to a DWI

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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A few months ago on my way home I was nearly driven into the guardrail of the interstate by another car. What makes my situation special is 1) I am a tv reporter / photog and 2) I had a dashcam rolling.

I gave the driver a few minutes while I followed him to see if it was just a mistake; looking too long at the ipod, whatever, but after five minutes or so it became apparent the operator was impared.

Admittedly, having done numerous stories on the subject, and it being the weekend of St. Patricks Day at midnight, I felt the chances were good I was dealing with an intoxicated driver.

I was headed southbound on I95 in VA leaving DC. I called the VA State Police. The Fairfax Barracks did not have a trooper near enough to me, so as I crossed into Stafford County I was relayed to the next barracks which vectored a trooper my direction. I stayed on the line for about a half hour until a trooper was able to catch up, follow the suspect briefly, and pull him over. An arrest was made soon after.

Tomorrow is court day. It was postponed from June, which is fine by me since I broke my heel in May and I am still getting better.

The dashcam video was so compelling the station actually did a story on in back when it happened. They plan to be there tomorrow for a follow up.

I know that a DWI by Joe Average doesn’t necessarily make news, but I think it is interesting to see the original camera video and follow through to the end. Also, if I am not mistaken, the suspect has a long record of DWI but don’t quote me on that. The video when he narrowly missed a head on collision with an oncoming driver was amazing. I was sure I was going to see death.

When we originally ran the story we did not reveal the driver’s name so as not to cause undo pain on the accused, and to give the legal system a chance to operate without stress from us. He drove a nondescript minivan, so it is unlikely anyone watching the story would know who he is.

I will try to post a link to story when it’s done.

See y’all then. The court time is 10am.

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Virginia has pretty tough DWI laws on the books, if I’m not mistaken. Automatic 5 days in jail and suspended license for first offense and then stepping on up for repeat offenses.

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Glad to hear you’re ok.

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That is interesting, 2gigch1. I think a lot of us see a lot of things while driving around that probably should be reported and stopped, but there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it. You really did something (with evidence and everything!). I’d be interest to see the linked story.

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Woot, great. Nice to see another moron may get taken off the roads, even if only temporarily. Way too often mrAru and I have seen drivers pulling shit that made us wish for a cop to be near by.

Would you think anybody with a dash cam could manage this, or do you think it is because you are a news photog? I would seriously consider getting a dash cam for long road trips … it always seems to be when we are out in the middle of nowhere on the NYS throughway when it happens…

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Dashcams are surprisingly affordable on the internet these days. I plan to save up for one for my wife. Generally you can get a quality one for under $200, records on SD card, loops infinately. Good stuff.

I use an 15 year old Digital8 Sony slaved to a hard drive to get my video, but I am a cheap sob.

And yes, anyone can do it. I highly suggest it. I started doing it because of all the silliness I have seen on the road over the years. I save all the snippets so if I am ever doing a story and I need file of a bicyclist almost getting hit, or a dangerous driver, I just go to my files.

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Here is the original story that aired March 31st.

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Yike - I’m glad that your video didn’t end up being used as evidence in a vehicular homicide case. (Does VA use that for when a driver who’s DWI kills someone else?)

I’ve seen my fair share of aggressive drivers, idiots, and aggressive idiots along that stretch, but so far thankfully not anyone where I’ve felt that I needed to grab my cell phone to prevent someone innocent from being hurt.

<< Insert witty quote here. >>

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Wow - thank God that other driver was on the ball enough to pull out of drunken idiot’s way (which, I gotta say, is hard to do if you’re talking on a cellphone).

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I hope your day tomorrow goes well.

I witnessed a DWI accident, and stuck around to give a statement. I was deposed a few weeks later and then never heard anything. I hope they threw the book at the guy. I was nearly part of the accident, he flew past me and down the road (doing at least 60 in a 35 zone), he was driving a station wagon, and hit a pickup when he blew through the stoplight a quarter mile from me. Everybody walked away, but it was a bad scene. He hit a utility pole after ricocheting off the pickup. His passenger was knocked out and he was really bloody. The pickup driver was seatbelted and OK.

This was in the early 90’s. A dashcam would have been very handy, I would have gotten the whole thing recorded easily. I wanted to appear in court, no problem, if they needed me to. There’s some sad history in my family involving drunk drivers, and I have zero tolerance or sympathy for them.

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They may have had some warning - when I slammed my brakes some warning switches got hit by all the crap in my truck (hence the BEEP BEEP BEEP I ha do endure for 40 minutes following this guy.) Once I realized I had a white topmast blinking I threw on the rest of my strobes to warn others (I certainly wasn’t being stealth.)

This may have helped the oncoming driver.

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Wow. That almost head-on was close: way close.

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Got any recommendations?

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Wow. Good work. The road has more drunk drivers than I think many people even realize. Getting them off the road is nothing but a win/win for everyone.

(and as a completely unrelated side note-DASHCAMS! That might be the way to go with handicap parking abuse. Hmm…)

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I like this one but it is by no means the best. I’ll do better research when I am ready to buy.

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Twenty-five miles?!? You followed that guy for 25 miles in order to warn other drivers of the danger he posed?

As soon as you see this post, picture me standing in my living room, giving you a standing ovation. Thank you for your service to your community. Regards,

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The minivan I called the cops on bounced off the freeway curb a couple of times going through a construction zone in front of me at 1AM. Response was surprisingly fast, as he got pulled over about 10km later. (Good thing too as I was still getting used to my new cellphone and my battery was dying).

It felt like school again as I used 2 or 3 pages worth of incident form writing my essay describing the whole thing. I never thought about court, and I was never asked to go, so I guess my prose was compelling enough. :wink:

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Well THAT was interesting. I could have sworn that the suspect had priors (at least it looked that way when we lloked up his records) but they ran it as a 1st time DWI. It was fairly low in the docket after a few more juicy cases including a bail review for a 1st degree murder accessory that we didn’t know about - very interesting!

Anyway they eventually called the suspect up. He is a Korean national, in his 50’s, here legally and working towards his citizenship. He drives beauty supply delivery for a living. The prosecution admitted early on this was a special case, not your normal DWI case. They notes I was the calling party and asked if I was present. I raised my hand. They then played back portions of my video on a laptop computer to the judge, specifically the initial near miss then the near head on collision. They then described the stop and the fact that the defendant blew a 0.14 alcohol content. Apparently that mattered because I gathered that 0.15 was a huge problem, 0.14 less so.

Then the defense went ahead and plead guilty. The defendant didn’t speak a word of english and had to use an interpreter.

In the end, and due to the video, he got a tougher sentance than normal. In fact when the prosecutor talked to me afterward he alluded to the idea there were some problems with the case and it may have been thrown out if I were not there and had provided evidence, but I can’t be sure of that.

He was sentanced to 60 days in jail, 55 suspended, license gone for a year but a work-only license permitted, take the VA Alcohol Awareness course, points & fines. Interestingly, the jail time may hurt his chances of becoming a citizen, and because of this they play to appeal the sentence. I have been warned I may be called back.

In the end I kinda feel sorry for him, but only in the way I feel sorry about anybody who messes up and has to pay the price. I don’t feel bad about my role in it and I have always believed if we all did our duties as responsible citizens maybe we would have less of these problems to begin with.

I will link the stories after they air tonight.

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My memory is not too bad.

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Here is tonight’s updated story. Enjoy!