What did your DUI cost you?
In Recovery
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 96
What did your DUI cost you?
I never added this up, but here is my 2nd DUI. I factored in Depreciation since I have one car rotting in the garage, and a boat that won't be drove 'till I get my license back. Fortunately my marriage survived.
Attorney: 4500
Insurance deductible (wreck): 1000
Class pt1: 800
Class pt2: 750
Drug testing: 250
Interlock device: 2484
Class pt3: 400
Jail fees: 180
Court Fines: 1050
Car Insurance (extra): 3660
Probation costs: 900
Lost Income (approx): 30,000
Depreciation on vehicles: 20,000
Total being: $66,074
And after all that I can't drink and I have no Drivers License. What did yours cost?
Attorney: 4500
Insurance deductible (wreck): 1000
Class pt1: 800
Class pt2: 750
Drug testing: 250
Interlock device: 2484
Class pt3: 400
Jail fees: 180
Court Fines: 1050
Car Insurance (extra): 3660
Probation costs: 900
Lost Income (approx): 30,000
Depreciation on vehicles: 20,000
Total being: $66,074
And after all that I can't drink and I have no Drivers License. What did yours cost?
Member
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 1,410
Personal I don't remember. It was a lot. When I got my first DUI, I didn't think too much of the money because I just wanted to have fun and get drunk all the time. I was getting pay good and paid it all off. When I was force to go to treatment they did the money thing and I think no one really cared about it. It was more of a legal hijack.
Most of the people who gotten a DUI that I saw really try to get through it as quickly as possible. Pay off all the fine, finish community service and do all the stuff to get your license back.
DUI in the USA will always be look at just as a money machine for the state. I know I may sound hard but over 1.5 million DUI are charge each year. It's something a lot of people go through.
Most of the people who gotten a DUI that I saw really try to get through it as quickly as possible. Pay off all the fine, finish community service and do all the stuff to get your license back.
DUI in the USA will always be look at just as a money machine for the state. I know I may sound hard but over 1.5 million DUI are charge each year. It's something a lot of people go through.
Powerless over Alcohol
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Trudging the Road to Happy Destiny!
Posts: 4,018
oh man yea i cant remember everything but alot, and i dont want to look up the papers.
But i throw what i do remember and what to come still. For 2 nd dui in 6 six years, 3 within 20, thats the laws in Ohio;
I was charged with 9 things dui,driving under suspension, driving while under suspension,failure to reenstate, invalid lisc., failure to blow with prior,speeding,lane straddling , and improper use of tags.
7k lawyer
20 days in county
6k court fine
random drug/etg test 65 everytime for 2 years
100 assesment
400 Madd meetings
20k 3 nigths in ICU
? new car
? insurance
? job
but i am sober for the first time in 25 years, so to me its all worth it
But i throw what i do remember and what to come still. For 2 nd dui in 6 six years, 3 within 20, thats the laws in Ohio;
I was charged with 9 things dui,driving under suspension, driving while under suspension,failure to reenstate, invalid lisc., failure to blow with prior,speeding,lane straddling , and improper use of tags.
7k lawyer
20 days in county
6k court fine
random drug/etg test 65 everytime for 2 years
100 assesment
400 Madd meetings
20k 3 nigths in ICU
? new car
? insurance
? job
but i am sober for the first time in 25 years, so to me its all worth it
Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Posts: 645
A colleague of mine has a 19 year old daughter who is awaiting trial on vehicular manslaughter. She was drinking heavily at a party then got into her car to drive home. The man she killed was in his seventies -- well loved by his family and by the community. How much is a man's life worth? That was the cost. How much is the life of a young girl worth? If she is convicted, she will be facing jail time. She has already dropped out of college in the aftermath of the accident. Two lives and two families devastated. Forever results. That was the cost. Susan
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Ontario
Posts: 806
Originally Posted by susanlauren 
A colleague of mine has a 19 year old daughter who is awaiting trial on vehicular manslaughter. She was drinking heavily at a party then got into her car to drive home. The man she killed was in his seventies -- well loved by his family and by the community. How much is a man's life worth? That was the cost. How much is the life of a young girl worth? If she is convicted, she will be facing jail time. She has already dropped out of college in the aftermath of the accident. Two lives and two families devastated. Forever results. That was the cost. Susan
This day and age it still amazes me that people will drink and drive!!!!!!
Member
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Southeast Arizona
Posts: 31
I was riding my bicycle early one Sunday morning a year or so back and was hit from behind by a speeding drunk who then left the scene of the "accident". The driver was later apprehended by the county sheriff. The cost to him? Five years in prison. The cost to me? Over a year of disability, pain, physical rehabilitation, recovery, legal hassles, and court appearances.
In truth, I have virtually no concern about the monetary cost to a person convicted of DUI. Rather, I am concerned for their potential victims. I am sorry if I sound harsh but there it is. From my reading here, a lot of DUI's sound a bit as though they feel sorry for themselves. When one is a victim of a DUI things look a lot different.
And, yes, to my everlasting regret, I have driven while impaired. Never again though!
In truth, I have virtually no concern about the monetary cost to a person convicted of DUI. Rather, I am concerned for their potential victims. I am sorry if I sound harsh but there it is. From my reading here, a lot of DUI's sound a bit as though they feel sorry for themselves. When one is a victim of a DUI things look a lot different.
And, yes, to my everlasting regret, I have driven while impaired. Never again though!
Member
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 1,237
Originally Posted by Spawn
This is the harsh reality.
This day and age it still amazes me that people will drink and drive!!!!!!
This day and age it still amazes me that people will drink and drive!!!!!!
In Recovery
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 96
Originally Posted by loveon2legs
But what it cost me and what I learned are two different things!! The lessons are priceless! really....
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
Nice post, Pachystima. From that perspective it's quite different.
Looking back on my mother's life, I realize just how many accidents she was involved in, and the cause of... we were always so relieved to find out she made it through them. One nearly decapitated her. She had so many close calls... never once did I think: Wow, I'm so thankful she didn't kill anyone. It was always the other way around.
I've had 1 DUI and it wasn't that expensive. I wrecked my own car driving in a drunken rage... angry with my ex-boyfriend. We were both in the car. I was so fortunate to hit a guide wire... one of those thick wires that hold power poles up. It broke the impact, otherwise we were headed for a small cliff and lots of trees... we were so lucky. I'm ashamed to admit I wrecked the car deliberately. I was in a blind drunken rage.
My mother had to have a metal bar inserted into her arm bones in her early 30's because of the wreck that almost decapitated her... she ran up under a parked 18 wheeler drunk out of her mind. All she was ever concerned about was paying those fines and getting lawyers to keep her from jail, and more fines.
I wanted to add: It was really sad and depressing to talk with my mom's last lawyer after she died. He told me I could have all her charges removed (and no more money to worry about paying for the fines either) now that she's dead... LOL. I haven't even bothered with it. I just thought... what bitter irony.
Looking back on my mother's life, I realize just how many accidents she was involved in, and the cause of... we were always so relieved to find out she made it through them. One nearly decapitated her. She had so many close calls... never once did I think: Wow, I'm so thankful she didn't kill anyone. It was always the other way around.
I've had 1 DUI and it wasn't that expensive. I wrecked my own car driving in a drunken rage... angry with my ex-boyfriend. We were both in the car. I was so fortunate to hit a guide wire... one of those thick wires that hold power poles up. It broke the impact, otherwise we were headed for a small cliff and lots of trees... we were so lucky. I'm ashamed to admit I wrecked the car deliberately. I was in a blind drunken rage.
My mother had to have a metal bar inserted into her arm bones in her early 30's because of the wreck that almost decapitated her... she ran up under a parked 18 wheeler drunk out of her mind. All she was ever concerned about was paying those fines and getting lawyers to keep her from jail, and more fines.
I wanted to add: It was really sad and depressing to talk with my mom's last lawyer after she died. He told me I could have all her charges removed (and no more money to worry about paying for the fines either) now that she's dead... LOL. I haven't even bothered with it. I just thought... what bitter irony.
Last edited by Soberpotamus; 07-28-2011 at 06:26 PM. Reason: last paragraph
Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 426
My DUI resulted in "catastrophic", life altering injury to multiple individuals. Monetarily, the sum total of damages and legal costs was astronomical, beyond comprehension. Far more devastating than the financial hit or the jail time or the felony record is the reality of waking up into this nightmare every day, with no way to take back my actions or restore what was lost in the wreck. It is a horrible, haunting debt, one which forever lingers at the forefront of my mind, and one which no amount of cash can ever repay.
Came to Believe
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Montgomery AL
Posts: 507
For all of the times that I drove highly intoxicated, I am not thankful that I never got caught...I'm only thankful that I never hurt anyone else. A DUI may have had the effect of forcing me to consider changing my life earlier than I did on my own. It makes me sick to think of how careless and stupid I was, and how horribly it might have ended up.
--Fenris.
--Fenris.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
