When it comes to DWI, Westchester County is hoping to buck the national statistics:
- One third of all Americans will be involved in a drunk driving crash in their lifetime.
- And car accidents are the number one killer of people between the ages of 25 and 34.
More than 400 people who’ve been convicted of alcohol-related offenses spent St. Patrick’s Day night at the County Center for a sober reminder of what could happen if they do the same thing again. They came by order of the court or their probation officer to attend a Victim Impact Panel and hear from people whose lives were changed forever by someone who didn’t think before getting behind the wheel.
The Victim Impact Panel is an awareness program conducted ten times a year by the Probation Department’s DWI Enforcement Unit and Mothers Against Drunk Driving in conjunction with the Office of Drug Prevention and STOP-DWI. Most participants are required to attend by a court or condition of probation after being convicted with driving while intoxicated or driving while ability-impaired. Others are sent by treatment agencies, private counselors or support groups, or come to accompany family members.
Attending a panel is a very emotional experience and something you don’t forget,” said Probation Commissioner Rocco Pozzi. “We’ve been doing this since 1999 and we’ve learned that it works. People who come to these programs get valuable information that may make them less likely to repeat their offense.”
All participants who had been convicted of alcohol-related offenses or who were on probation had to take a breathalyzer test, pass through security screening, and pay $50 to attend.
At Thursday’s program, probation officer Joe Lhotan spoke about the growing problem of people driving after drinking or drugging and noted that 1,600 people were on probation in Westchester County alone for committing such offenses.
Lhotan also chided the crowd for being “selfish” and making the choice to put themselves “behind a two-ton missile.”
“Many people on probation come in claiming it was their first time driving drunk,” he said. “In reality, we know it’s more likely they have driven dozens of times with alcohol in their system. This was just the first time they got caught.”
Jennifer, a 30-year-old woman who was the driver in a DWI crash in White Plains that killed her best friend in 2003, gave a tearful emotional plea for others not to make the same choices she did.
“I don’t understand why he died, and I didn’t, and this is the question that I will have to live with for the rest of my life,” she said.Attendees also heard the emotional first-person stories of Carol Sears, a Larchmont woman who was severely injured and lost her husband in a car crash, and Shelia Abrams of White Plains who lost both a son and daughter. A PowerPoint presentation showed powerful images of a girl horribly disfigured in a car accident caused by a drunk driver.
The next Victim Impact Panel is April 14.
Caption: Probation officer Terry Gorman gives a breathalyzer test to one of more than 400 attendees entering the Victim Impact Panel event.