Further Confessions of a Drunk Driver

When the local Highway Patrol asked me to be a guinea pig at last week’s “Driving Under the Influence Exposition”--to drink and then drive a parking-lot course to test my reactions--my friend Tony came to mind.

One night several years ago, Tony--who said he was not drunk, only tipsy--attracted the attention of two Highway Patrol officers. They stopped him and told him to recite the alphabet.

Tony took the order seriously. He started, but he couldn’t get past E or G. He was puzzled. Then the solution flashed in his mind: He had learned the alphabet by singing it, so he’d sing it now. He began--”Ay, bee, cee, dee, ee, eff, geeeee”--but when he reached “zee,” he kept going: “Now I’ve said my ABCeeeees, tell me what you think of meeeee.”

“We think you’re drunk,” the cop said. “Get in the car.”

I always wondered why Tony did such a bonehead thing, drunk or sober. There he was before two uniformed cops doing something that would determine whether he went home or to jail. Why screw around? Nobody gets that addled and can still stand, I thought.

Tony’s blood alcohol concentration had been 0.11%. When I was escorted by Patrol Officer Sandy Salgado to my car in the Anaheim Stadium parking lot, mine was 0.10%. That’s the level at which the law presumes you’re intoxicated.

I knew I was buzzed, but I didn’t feel “intoxicated.” I was easily able to step over a thigh-high boundary ribbon and walk steadily out to the car. I knew I’d be more shaky on this course than when I’d driven it sober, but I knew I could compensate by concentrating. I’d do OK.

I very much wanted to do well, because there were 11 other drivers, some of them doing better than I. My name was being announced over the loudspeaker, and people were watching.

Here’s what happened, according to the tape recording I made:

I accelerated off the mark and down the narrow lane marked by traffic cones on each side. Ahead, the one lane widened like a funnel into three lanes, each with a traffic signal hanging overhead. When I was 88 feet from them, two of the lights turned red, and I had to swerve hard to the right to make it into the green-light lane.

It’s not that hard to do, and I remembered making it through fine. That is, until I heard the tape the following day.

On the tape I heard the thump-thump-thump-thump of traffic cones being crushed. I was laughing. “All those poor nuns,” I heard myself say. Very funny.

I kept going, with Officer Sandy coaching me. “You’re cuttin’ it too quick, you’re cuttin’ it too quick,” she said. My skin crawled when I heard how I answered: “I’m doin’ fine. You just don’t talk to me, all right?”

I remembered intending it as a witty wisecrack. It came out as blunt and abusive. “OK, fine,” she said and fell silent. I didn’t even notice I had offended her. It took two days to reach her by phone and apologize.

I continued around the course and finished with a good time. I had, however, brushed or knocked down maybe an eighth of the lane boundary markers. I didn’t remember touching them. In truth, I hadn’t cared much whether I hit them or not, despite the pressure to do well.

When I reached the finish line, I stopped--I thought. On the tape, however, Officer Sandy said “stop” five times, the last two rather firmly. “Put it in park,” she ordered. I was laughing. I was having a ball.

As we were walking back, I asked her how I had done. “You took out about 15 people at that first turn--all of them. And when you pulled in and parked and backed out, you took out all the cones while backing out,” she said.

“I never saw it,” I heard myself say. “I never saw it happen. It’s amazing!”

“You went completely off the course,” she said. “In other words, you would have driven up the curb.”

That last sentence was an emotional jolt when I heard it on tape the next day. The face of 4-year-old David Gunderman flashed into my sobered mind. I had reported his story in 1982. He had been standing at a curb in Santa Ana waiting for the ice cream man when a drunk driver lost control and simply “drove up the curb.”

The car had only gone up on the curb a little. If a trash can had been standing there, it would have been no big deal. But David Gunderman had been standing there, and so he was dead. The driver, who couldn’t get his car door open, had sat back and lit up a cigar to wait.

What a monster, I had thought. Now I realize that he may not even have known he’d hit anything. I realize it because I had done the same thing on the Anaheim Stadium parking lot with a lot less liquor under my belt. It’s a withering realization.

Listening to myself on tape, I realized that while my fingers and arms and legs were fumbling a bit, it was my common sense that seemed to suffer the most. What I thought was witty was actually obnoxious. What I thought was a good idea was foolish and reckless. I’m a conservative driver with a good driving record, but at the moment I just wasn’t taking anything very seriously.

I always thought I was under control when I was drunk. Now I realize it was only because a drunk was making the appraisal. I’ve never been sober when I was drunk; how was I to know? “Hey, you OK, buddy?” “Sure, I’m fine.” Oh yeah? Then why is he asking? That tape recording showed it to me for the first time.

My day with the CHP taught me a lot about drinking and driving, but it showed me more about just plain drinking. I think it has changed the way I’ll do it from now on.

On Tuesday: A drunken journalist interviews a tipsy judge.