My ridiculous OWI was downgraded to reckless driving

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I have the best lawyer.

He argued the truth...that the accident was for unknown reasons, but that the medication I've taken for 30 years, accident free, and that the only thing in my system was a low level of anxiety medication.

I'm very grateful. I deserve to get reckless driving. My most logical explanation is that I fell asleep so that is reckless driving. The driving was reckless. But I wasn't intoxicated in any way.

Now I can slowly try driving again, but I'm only doing it close to my home so that I don't get tired by long rides...
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
I am happy for you SWOT that the charge was reduced. It seems wrong to me too that the initial charge would have been OUI.

I am so glad you are okay, and recovering well.

It was very nice to read that you'd gone back to work.

:O)

Cedar
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
YAY!!! That was exactly what should have happened! There was no way that your medications had anything to do with it. The law has to have some common sense behind it!
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
OWI stands for Operating While Intoxicated. It's Wisconsin-ese for DUI.

SWOT, I'm very glad you beat the OWI. I got pulled over at 1:30 AM on my way to the ER vet with Thomas. I was on a stretch of highway that hadn't been there the lasts time I'd had to drive to Mayfair, WI, there was road construction, I had no idea where the exit I needed was amidst all the construction, and got pulled over.

Cop asked me if I knew why he pulled me over. I said, "It's either the weaving, the varying speed, or my driving in two lanes at once. He sorta said, "Yeah. Hey! You seem sober!" I said, "I am, but I've got a very sick cat in the car, I'm having trouble seeing, I'm unfamiliar with this road and I need to get my cat to the vet ER."

Once he ran my license and reg., he came back, told me he wasn't going to ruin a 40 yr clean record, told me where to get off the highway, and gave me a shortcut to the vet ER, and "suggested" I not drive strange roads in the dark.

I told him the only thing that got me out on the roads after dark was emergencies, and this was one.

I was "passing" bricks as there's no way I could've passed a drug test just due to my usual daily medications.

For all of that, WI doesn't jail you until the sixth OWI.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
GN, glad you got a cop with compassion. Glad you and Thomas were able to go to the vet, untested.

GN, Wisconsin has to be one of the most lenient states when true substance abusers are involved. I realize there are consequences for driving intoxicated, but like you, I hear and read about people on the road, pulled over for something and they have had nine intoxicated driving tickets. It makes no sense to give these costly,powerful, never-get-it-off-your-record tickets to people who obviously, per testing, are not intoxicated, but allowing nine time drunk driving offenders back on the road. It doesn't make our streets any safer.

You'd think that the second biggest drinking state in the nation would hone in on the real death drivers.

For those who wonder which state is ahead of us in this dubious department, a few years ago, I heard it was Massachusetts. This year, I heard it is now Arizona. Not sure about either.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
I found out, in the process of insuring my car when I moved to SE WI, that WI still holds the lead in OWI fatalities though.

And they drive like freakin' lunatics in Milwaukee and metro.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Well.no surprise there.

City driving everywhere scares me. I will never drive in Milwaukee...lol. I didn't drive in Chicago either. I think Chicago may be worse. When I worked Downtown in Chicago just crossing the street was a risk, dodging crazy drivers and homicidal cabbies. Driving there must have been like playing Russian roulette.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Well, I think I've driven in the Chicago "Loop" maybe ten times, and I learned how to drive in Chicago. If at all possible, I took some form or forms of public trans to navigate downtown Chicago. I bypass Milwaukee's downtown as much as possible, but that's easy and nothing like Chicago's Loop.

I know my way around downtown Chi on foot, though would have to call CTA and Metra if planning a trip downw there as they keep rearranging the various types of transportation and their routes.

When I worked down there, I flat out couldn't afford 18-24 dollars a day to park every day I worked. From what I understand, the parking prices have gone up quite a bit since then.

I think for me, the last straw with driving down there was the bike messengers.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I forgot or never knew about the bike messengers. Please share.

Honestly, between Downtown Chicago and OHare Airport (which we visited often while living in Des Plaines), I don't know which place had more "eccentrics."
 
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GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
They are independent contractors signed to a few contracting houses. They courier documents between the big office buildings downtown. They have their own culture, some of their own slang, and they are absolutely insane bicyclists. They will slip through the few inches of space between a cab and a bus, for example. They scare the hell out of me because on top of everything else, they are both silent and tend to pop up where they are least expected.
 
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