DUI, Client Hits Two Parked Cars, Torrance, 0.13% BAC

Our client, age 25, was returning home in his Toyota Tacoma from a night out in Old Town Torrance and heading northbound on Van Ness Avenue.  It was about 10:15 p.m.  He was about fifteen blocks from home when he fell asleep and ran into a parked car along the right side of the road.

The angle of impact caused his truck to roll over completely, only to keep rolling and land back on its tires and then hit a second parked car.  Our client was not injured and there was no one in the parked cars.

Somehow, the client had enough situational awareness to pull his car alongside the curb to get out of the way of traffic.  The two cars he hit were not moved much from their parking spots.

If it were not for the noise of the collision and debris on the roadway from the collisions, no one else may have noticed the collisions.  However, at about 10:30 p.m., a Torrance Police Department officer arrived at the scene.  Our client was standing on the side of the street.

Police asked him if he was the driver of the Toyota Tacoma and our client answered “yes.”  According to the police report, police could smell the odor of alcohol and noticed our client had bloodshot, watery eyes.  Police asked our client to give a breath sample into a hand-held Preliminary Alcohol Screening (PAS) device and our client agreed.  His breath was measured at 0.12% and 0.11% blood alcohol content (BAC).  

Police then arrested our client and transported him to the Torrance Police Station, where he submitted to a further breath test.  In the test at the station, on a DataMaster DMT machine, his BAC was measured at 0.14% and 0.13%.  

The client was then held for about six hours before being released to his mom.  Our client signed a promise to appear in the Torrance Courthouse about three months later.

About a week later, the client and his mom called Greg Hill & Associates and described what had happened.  The mom asked many questions about how our office would defend her son.  The mom and her son had called many attorneys, but ultimately retained Greg Hill & Associates. 

Our client was keenly interested in resolving the DUI case as a wet reckless, which he had learned from other attorneys would preserve his driving privileges.  This was extremely important for the client because he worked for a major airline at LAX and his job involved driving around the airport.  He feared losing his job if his driver’s license was suspended.

At the DMV Hearing, Greg was able to have the suspension of the client’s license set aside because the Torrance Police Report failed to report what time the crash took place at and did not ask our client when he last drove, or even what time he left the bar.  

In the Torrance Courthouse, this same defense did not have quite the same benefit because the Torrance City Prosecutor had a 911 call that the DMV did not.  In the 911 call, the caller told police at a specific time, “someone just crashed into a parked car outside my house,” which provided the last time of driving.

While the case was pending, our client told Greg that he believed very strongly that the police had lied about him taking a breath test at the Torrance Police Station.  Our client insisted he never took such a test and that the police were fabricating evidence.

Greg therefore requested the videos from the Torrance Police station, including those of his booking and his breath test.  In one of the videos, our client was seen clearly blowing into a breath test tube attached to a breath test machine.  Greg showed this to the client.

Ultimately, the case was resolved for a DUI, not a wet reckless, as our client’s BAC was just too high.  Our client was placed on three years of informal, or summary, probation, with an obligation to enroll in and complete the three-month AB 541 alcohol awareness program; pay a court fine of $390 plus penalties and assessments (less $250 credit for two days in custody toward the $390 base fine, making his total owed under $1,000); enrollment in and completion of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) victim impact panel; enrollment in and completion of the Hospital and Morgue (HAM) program and payment of restitution to the two owners of the damaged cars for any amounts that our client’s insurance did not pay, but that either owner claimed were still damages incurred.