Driving Drunk

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
May 28, 2007

DuPage County State’s Attorney Jane Radostits killed herself while driving drunk on May 11.

After a bomb scare at the SA’s office others and she took off for errands and a lunch of appetizers and drinks for three hours.

The DuPage County sheriff’s report indicates that she was speeding about 85MPH in a 45MPH zone, may have been on her cell phone and was not wearing her seatbelt when she lost control of her car.

A poster in the Daily Herald wrote that many, if not most, drunk drivers pulled over are first-time offenders. Sorry, but I think he is wrong. They might be getting caught for the first time, but it’s not the first time they were driving while drunk. They have just been lucky too many times before, because there are too few cops on the road looking for drunk drivers and, when they stop one, they are tied up far too long with paperwork and then miss many more.

And what if Radostits had been stopped before she caused the wreck? Would she have flashed her ID card at the cop? Would she have been passive or belligerent? By nature of her work, might she have become at least “assertive” with the officer who stopped her? Would she have gotten a “pass”? Been taken home? Had her husband called to pick her up? Been driven home by the cop’s supervisor or commanding officer? Called one of her State’s Attorney drinking buddies to come and get her? Taken to a coffee shop to “sober up”?

Professional courtesy, don’t you know? I guess it all depends on where she got stopped and the level of the cop’s integrity.

Had I stopped her (when I was a deputy)? Ignore the State’s Attorney ID. Disarm her, if she was carrying a weapon. Roadside sobriety check. Handcuffs. Have her car towed. Off to the pokey. Breath or blood tests. Arrest, photographs, fingerprinting. Jail. Bail. Court date. Prosecution and, hopefully, conviction and jail.

What about her drinking buddies that day? Why didn’t the DuPage County Sheriff’s report dig more deeply into their own consumption of alcohol? Sitting for three hours in a restaurant, eating only appetizers? Does anyone else wonder just how much alcohol each really had to drink?

And what about right here in McHenry County? Where are the favorite water holes of the bureaucrats, politicians and cops?

According to the Daily Herald (not the Northwest Herald) on May 26, McHenry County State's Attorney Louis "Bianchi has a standing agreement with his staff: If, for any reason, they cannot drive, he personally will reimburse them for their cab fare home."

Thanks, Daddy. I presume that he will not charge taxpayers for this cost on a County expense reimbursement form. It's pretty nice that he plays "Daddy" for his employees. Of course, what employee is going to call him at 2:00AM? "Lou, I'm too drunk to drive and need a cab home" or "Lou, I was too drunk to drive last night and took a cab home. Here's the bill for $100."