Drunk Driving

Want to fool merchants with a fake ID? Hack someone's text messages? Or how about tracking where your co-workers are, without their knowing it? There's an app for that. The explosion in smartphone and tablet applications that enable people to check the weather, follow their stocks and play Words With Friends has a dark side: apps that facilitate questionable if not outright illegal behavior. Apple's App Store, for example, offers Drivers License software that promises "unlimited access to realistic-looking licenses" for all 50 states.

The Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday made its case for why officers often are given warnings, instead of suspensions, for drunk driving, domestic disputes and other serious types of misconduct. Deputy Chief Mark Perez appeared before the civilian Police Commission, which oversees the LAPD and has raised concerns in recent months about the department's unconventional approach to disciplining officers. Perez presented preliminary discipline figures that, he said, showed officers who received the warnings recommitted the same type of misconduct far less often than those who were suspended.

A Malibu Municipal Court judge was arrested Wednesday night near Agoura Hills on suspicion of drunk driving after running his car into a dirt embankment, the California Highway Patrol said Friday. Judge Lawrence Mira, 49, allegedly failed a field sobriety test after CHP officers responded to a one-car, non-injury accident at 11:10 p.m. on Cornell Road near Wagon Road in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County.

Lindsay Lohan will not be appearing in court anymore if she continues to obey the law, a Los Angeles judge told her Thursday after ending the actress' supervised probation on shoplifting and drunk-driving convictions. The hearing put an end to Lohan's five years of criminal court appearances that saw the actress bounce in and out of rehab and jail for violating her probation. L.A. County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner declared "she did it," in announcing Lohan had completed 480 hours of community service at the county morgue and undergone dozens of therapy sessions.

The superintendent of the Riverside Unified School District was arrested this month on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, and has taken a 30-day sick leave to enroll in an alcohol-abuse-treatment program. The California Highway Patrol reported that Susan J. Rainey, 58, was stopped and then arrested on the evening of Sept. 2 when officers conducted a sobriety checkpoint on the southbound 215 Freeway south of Newport Road near Menifee, said CHP Officer Brad Barksdale.

Three former Northwest Airlines pilots convicted of flying a passenger plane while intoxicated were sentenced to prison Friday, two of them for a year and the other for 16 months. U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum also imposed three years of probation on each, telling them: "Gentlemen, you are good men who have done a bad thing." The judge said that the pilots' actions amounted to a breach of faith between the traveling public and the pilots. "It is a crime against our sense of security.

A chronic speeder described by a prosecutor as "an accident waiting to happen" was sentenced to 15 years to life imprisonment Friday for a 1994 crash in Silverado Canyon in which his close friend was killed. Shane Kenneth Young, 27, apologized for his actions, but told the judge he doesn't think he should have been convicted of second-degree murder for the death of 20-year-old Jasmin Marie Cook.

Hundreds of friends gathered Friday to mourn the death of a 9-year-old Calabasas boy killed when he was catapulted from the back of a Jeep driven by a man whose license had been revoked for drunk-driving violations.

Thanksgiving Day festivities ended with arrests of nine motorists in Ventura County suspected of drunk driving as the California Highway Patrol boosted its presence to handle heavy traffic. During the first 24 hours of the holiday weekend, ending at 6 a.m. Friday, CHP officers picked up six drivers in Santa Barbara County on suspicion of drunk driving. No major accidents were reported, despite the large numbers of tourists and residents on the road Thursday and Friday.

A jury deliberated about an hour Wednesday in Minneapolis before acquitting Minnesota Vikings' quarterback Tommy Kramer of a drunk driving charge. "I'm happy with the decision, but I'm not surprised," the 32-year-old Kramer said. "That's the reason I went to court, to prove my innocence." Kramer was arrested at 11:30 p.m. July 24 after leaving a restaurant in Bloomington, a Minneapolis suburb.

Drunk drivers receiving their first conviction were less likely to be repeat offenders if they were forced to have alcohol interlock devices on their vehicles, according to a new study. Looking at alcohol-impaired driving convictions in Washington, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that the rate of repeat offenders has fallen 12% since the state expanded its interlock requirement eight years ago to include everyone convicted of driving under the influence. Previously, Washington required the device, which a driver must blow into before starting the vehicle, for repeat offenders, drivers caught with high blood-alcohol levels and those who refused an alcohol test.

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration, Randy Babbitt, has resigned after his arrest for allegedly driving while intoxicated in Virginia. Babbitt, 65, had been placed on administrative leave Monday. He offered his resignation Tuesday to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who accepted. “As FAA Administrator, Randy Babbitt has been a dedicated public servant and outstanding leader.  I'm proud to say that we have the safest aviation system in the world, and thanks to Randy's stewardship, it became safer and stronger," LaHood said in a statement.

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration has been placed on administrative leave after his arrest over the weekend for allegedly driving while intoxicated in Virginia, according to the Associated Press. Randy Babbitt, 65, was arrested by police in Fairfax, Va. Saturday for allegedly driving on the wrong side of the road. Babbitt cooperated with the arrest and was released on his recognizance after posting a bond, the Fairfax police department said in a release. The FAA had no immediate comment.

At the Long Beach Ballet academy on Wardlow Road, pint-sized ballerinas get dressed upstairs in Signal Hill. When they go downstairs for class, the dance floor is in Long Beach. That's because city lines pierce right through the building, making it a two-city hybrid that was created when 100-year-old boundaries got overtaken by development. From time to time, the oddity has created confusion among business owners and residents seeking to get business licenses, pay taxes or obtain police services.

David Dutcher met Sharon on Match.com in late 2008, a few months after separating from his wife. "We had a lot in common," he recalled. Sharon loved four-wheel-drive trucks and sports. They met for coffee, then dinner. Sharon was tall, slender, blond and beautiful. She moaned that she had not had sex in a long time. She told him he had large, strong hands and wondered if that portended other things. She described his kisses as "yummy. " "It felt a lot like Christmas," said Dutcher, 49, a tall, burly engineer with wavy red hair.

Drunk driving is down -- nearly 30% from its peak in 2006, if Americans responding to a recent survey can be believed.   Even so, an estimated 4 million Americans still admitted to at least once having operated a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, resulting in about 112 million "alcohol impaired driving episodes" and thousands of fatalities, wrote researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a paper published Tuesday...

Twenty-one people were arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in Ventura County during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, a dozen fewer than in 1993, authorities said Monday. That was a fall-off of 36%. The arrests were made between Wednesday night and Monday morning, when extra California Highway Patrol officers were assigned to monitor the county's roadways. In Santa Barbara County, 18 drivers were arrested during the same period.

A San Diego police officer facing hit-and-run and drunk driving charges was found dead in the backyard of his home Monday morning, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said. David Hall, 41, was discovered slumped against the rear wall of his home in the Clairemont Mesa neighborhood of San Diego. His wife called police shortly after the 10 a.m. shooting. Hall, a motorcycle officer, was off duty in February when he allegedly struck another car on a freeway onramp, injuring a female passenger, and fled the scene.