Drunk Driving

To the barflies at the Hen House tavern, Novis Levelle Lackey was known simply as "Lucky." Friends say the nickname dates to his Navy days, long before the retired veteran began showing up mornings for a few 12-ounce pulls of Budweiser on tap. Cigarettes in hand, the gray-haired 63-year-old would then hit the road, authorities say, maybe stopping off at the nearby Castle bar before heading home. Lackey wasn't always so lucky.

A chronic speeder from Silverado Canyon who ignored traffic tickets and scores of warnings was found guilty Wednesday of second-degree murder and drunk driving for an October 1994 crash that claimed the life of his close friend. Shane Kenneth Young, 26, was convicted by an Orange County Superior Court jury that embraced the prosecution's argument that Young was well aware of the risks as he drove down a rural road at twice the posted speed limit after consuming alcohol and marijuana.

For the last seven years, Horace, a four-time convicted drunk driver, has lived with an electronic probation officer in the front seat of his red sedan. The device, an "ignition interlock," acts as a breath-alcohol analyzer and requires him to prove he's sober before the engine will start. New Mexico, which led the nation in alcohol-related crash rates for years, in 2005 became the first state to require the interlock for every convicted drunk driver.

The last thing the Bammers wanted was litigation. They believed in forgiveness, they said, and had faith that it was God's job, not the courts', to balance the scales. But when the parents of the drunk driver who killed their daughter failed to express remorse, they got an attorney and sued. "We prayed a lot about it," Nancy Bammer said of the family's decision to sue the parents of one of their daughter's friends. "It really wasn't for economics; there was a need to get the word out."

A high-pressure federal effort to toughen drunk driving laws across the nation is meeting resistance in a third of the states, where many politicians say the policy is counterproductive and misguided. Highway safety regulators in 1998 called on states to lower the allowable blood-alcohol level for drivers to 0.08%, or risk losing millions of dollars in federal highway grants.

Gary Payton was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after trying to back his car down an onramp on the San Diego Freeway near Brentwood early Aug. 28, the California Highway Patrol said. Payton, traded from the Lakers to the Boston Celtics earlier last month, was stopped at 1:14 a.m. after an officer saw him backing down the Moraga Drive onramp to avoid heavy traffic caused by an accident.

No one saw it coming. Not his agent or his bosses -- the shoot he had just wrapped had been long, strange and physically difficult but not out of control. Not the Malibu restaurant owner who served him appetizers early that fateful evening, or the two young women with whom he later posed for pictures. Certainly the friends with whom he spent his last scandal-free afternoon had no idea that Mel Gibson was about to go on a life-changing bender.

March 4, 1987. It was about 9 o'clock on a quiet Wednesday evening at the Shaner home. Four-year-old Jessica had dressed in her pink bodysuit and tutu--she called it her "Tinker Bell" costume--and settled on the den sofa to watch her favorite "Care Bears" video. Her mother, Barbara, having nursed the baby, Morgan, and put him to bed, was in Jessica's room putting away clean clothes. Her father, Tim, had been up at 5:30 a.m.

Nolan LeMar battled to resume his baseball career after suffering severe burns in a freak science class explosion 2 1/2 years ago. On Tuesday, friends and relatives were in mourning after learning that LeMar, a 19-year-old co-captain on the College of the Canyons baseball team, had been killed in a head-on collision with a driver in Santa Clarita who authorities said had been drinking. LeMar, who hoped to one day play professionally, was remembered as a leader by his teammates.

A drunk driver who veered off the road and decapitated a friend who had leaned his head out a window was sentenced to five years in prison Wednesday. John Kemper Hutcherson, 21, pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in the death last August of Frankie Brohm, 23, whose head was severed when the truck grazed a telephone pole guy wire.

The day after Westminster City Councilman Andy Quach was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving for crashing his Mercedes-Benz into a pole and knocking out power to more than 300 homes, further investigation revealed that Quach's car and another moving vehicle had collided just moments before, Westminster police said. Quach was driving east on McFadden Avenue just after midnight Sunday when he hit another car that was also traveling east, said Sgt. Dan Schoonmaker.

For the last seven years, Horace, a four-time convicted drunk driver, has lived with an electronic probation officer in the front seat of his red sedan. The device, an "ignition interlock," acts as a breath-alcohol analyzer and requires him to prove he's sober before the engine will start. New Mexico, which led the nation in alcohol-related crash rates for years, in 2005 became the first state to require the interlock for every convicted drunk driver.

Sonoma County's head of drunk driving and drug addiction programs has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. Tom Newell, a supervisor in the Department of Health Services' drug and alcohol services division, was arrested Friday after authorities spotted him driving recklessly just west of Sebastopol. The California Highway Patrol says Newell is believed to have been under the influence of a painkiller. Toxicology tests are still pending and he is due in court on June 18. Newell says he's been taking prescription painkillers for chronic pain from five knee surgeries and a hip replacement.

Everyone knows it's dangerous and illegal for a sloppy drunk to get behind the wheel and power the car home through an alcoholic haze. And it's certainly dangerous and illegal for a tipsy twentysomething starlet or a trashed fortysomething actor to buzz through city streets among the rest of us. Consider it sheer luck if their reckless behavior hasn't yet caused injury or death.

Charles Barkley didn't blame a wife or a cousin or the family dog for putting some unknown substance into his glass or forcing him to get behind the wheel of some unidentifiable vehicle after having a drink. Barkley came back to the TNT "Inside The NBA" show Thursday night for the first time in nearly two months and he was mostly just Charles, maybe biting his lip a little but also accepting blame for his arrest in December for driving under the influence.

Ryan Dallas Cook was homeward bound on his motorcycle on an October night in 2005 when he clipped a stalled, darkened SUV that had rammed into a concrete barrier on the 55 Freeway, an impact that hurled him to the pavement, where he was hit by several passing cars and died. Police said the driver of the SUV was a Hyundai executive who had allegedly spent a long night drinking.

A man who crashed his Hummer into a Los Angeles Police Department patrol car has been arrested on felony drunken driving charges, authorities said Sunday. George Angulo, 45, of Los Angeles allegedly ran a stop sign and struck the patrol car about 5:10 p.m. Saturday near West Avenue 36 and Portner Street in Glassell Park, police said. The two officers in the vehicle were injured and taken to a hospital. One of the officers was treated and released, but the other officer stayed in the hospital awaiting surgery for a broken leg, said Karen Smith of the LAPD.

Prosecutors charged Oscar-winning screenwriter Roger Avary with gross vehicular manslaughter on Friday, alleging that the author of such hits as "Pulp Fiction" and last year's "Beowulf" was driving drunk when he killed a passenger and injured his wife in a rural Ojai car crash. Avary, 43, pleaded not guilty in a Ventura courthouse to manslaughter and other charges connected to the Jan. 13 single-car collision.

Vodka on ice and driving while intoxicated took on new meaning last week when an employee at Kingsville Arena in Canada was arrested and charged with drunk driving while behind the wheel of a Zamboni. Witnesses said the driver, a 34-year-old woman, was driving erratically while resurfacing the arena ice, bumping into the boards and missing large patches of ice, evidently having fallen asleep at the wheel. According to the Windsor Star, the woman had a "mickey of vodka" in her pocket.

A Garden Grove man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of killing a female bicyclist while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. According to Orange County prosecutors, Alex Trujillo, 43, having taken prescription drugs and with a blood-alcohol level of 0.13%, swerved his pickup truck off a Seal Beach road Oct. 12 and struck Catherine Busse, who was bicycling on the sidewalk with her son.