Family Tragedy Spurs CHP Officer to Lecture Students About Drunk Driving

Haunted by the deaths of an aunt and two teen-age cousins in an accident caused by a drunk 17-year-old driver a decade ago, California Highway Patrol Officer Al Arredondo is determined to keep drunk drivers off the road.

So while on the job, he keeps his eyes open for drunk drivers. And after work, Arredondo organizes high school assemblies, talks to driver-education classes and lectures community groups. He sometimes asks victims of drunk-driving accidents to help him spread the message that drinking and driving are a deadly combination.

“When you’re on the road (on patrol), you don’t ever feel like you’re doing enough,” said Arredondo, 35. Arresting a couple of drunks a night is not the answer, he said.

His message is especially urgent during spring, he said, the season of proms, graduation parties and consequently, drunk-driving arrests. While off duty, the 6-year California Highway Patrol veteran and Orange resident spoke at more than 40 Orange County schools last year. He also is a volunteer with the Orange County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and has spearheaded a springtime campaign that has so far taken him to five high schools in an effort to keep celebrations from turning to tragedy.

High school students are especially at risk, Arredondo said, because, “they are inexperienced drinkers and inexperienced drivers.” Such students, he said, “are still at the age when a driver’s license is a big thing.”

Youths face peer pressure to try drugs and alcohol, a pressure that he hopes his 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son can withstand.

“I don’t want to let other students put pressure on (my children) to risk their lives,” he said.

Arredondo, who is assigned to a CHP office in South Los Angeles, said he wants to spread his message to Orange County teen-agers because many of them tend to have more mobility, money and access to cars than teen-agers in less affluent areas.

Last week, Arredondo spoke to a group of 400 students at University High School in Irvine. He warned students: If you drink, don’t drive.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Use your options.”

Call a friend, relative or cab to pick you up, he suggested.

At the assembly, Arredondo invited KEZY disc jockey Mark (The Shark) McKay to speak.

“Call me,” McKay told the students. “If you can’t find one person, if no one else understands, then call me. I’m totally serious.”

McKay, 22, said he will suggest options and solutions for students who find themselves too drunk to drive home.

McKay said his memories of a happy school prom were shattered when his girlfriend, who had been drinking, stepped on her car’s gas pedal instead of the brake, flipping the car and killing her 2 weeks before prom night.

“It’s a stupid way to die,” McKay said. “It’s not fun to spend the day before your high school graduation in a . . . church.”

Arredondo also asked James P. Quinn to speak. Arredondo first saw Quinn 3 years ago, lying on a highway with a severely fractured skull. On that night, Arredondo reached down and failed to detect a pulse. Quinn was dead. Or so Arredondo thought.

Three years later, Arredondo discovered that Quinn, 25, was alive.

At the assembly, Quinn stood up and spoke to a hushed audience.

Three years ago, he said, a friend gave him a ride from a Halloween party. They had both been drinking. Their car grazed another car before even pulling out of a driveway, he said.

“I was so loaded I didn’t have enough sense to get out of the car then,” Quinn said. He stayed in the car, which eventually flipped in the near-fatal accident. The driver, he said, later pleaded guilty to felony drunk-driving charges.

Quinn concluded by saying, “If you choose the life of a drug addict or an alcoholic, there (are) only two places you could end up: in prison or in hell.”

The message, Arredondo said, is: “Remember your options.”

People Columnist Herbert J. Vida is on vacation.