It’s frustrating to law enforcement to see an upswing in dangerous driving behavior that is entirely avoidable. To officers it’s quite simple: Don’t drink and drive. But comparing the number of operating while intoxicated cases between 2023 and so far in 2024 shows that lesson just isn’t sinking in.
Barron County recorded a total of 93 OWIs, both vehicular and ATV/UTV, in 2023, but this year that number likely will be blown away. The tally for 2024 stood at 90 last week — and there’s more than three months to go until the New Year. For the Rice Lake Police Department, its total of 111 cases in the city in 2023 has already been surpassed with 122 recorded so far in 2024.
“For some reason accidents are up, OWIs are up,” Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said.
The sheriff is frustrated that education and anti-drunken driving campaigns such as Stay Sober or Get Pulled Over aren’t putting a dent in the number of OWIs. All law enforcement asks, he said, is that people be smart when they go out to enjoy restaurants and other establishments that serve alcohol by designating a sober driver ahead of time or asking for a ride, such as through the Tavern League of Wisconsin’s RideShare program, if feeling impaired.
The alternative for drivers who operate while drunk includes handcuffs.
Wisconsin is the only state in which a first-time OWI is treated as a traffic forfeiture, unless underage passengers are involved. While the economic consequences can be quite hefty with a first offense, a citation really doesn’t reflect the serious consequences that can arise when drivers choose to get behind the wheel while impaired.
As evidence, look no further than two crashes from the weekend of Sept. 6-8, one of which proved fatal.
Alcohol is suspected — but not confirmed — to have been a factor in a fatal head-on collision between two vehicles on the evening of Sept. 6. If the crash was indeed alcohol-related, the victim became one of the about 37 people in the U.S. who die in the course of one day in drunken driving crashes, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics.
The initial investigation led police to believe alcohol may have been involved when a vehicle driven by 45-year-old Steven Anderson of Rice Lake crossed the center line and struck another vehicle head on, causing it to roll over and catch fire, according to a Barron County Sheriff’s Department news release.
The driver of the vehicle that caught on fire, 60-year-old John Schuebel of Cameron, was killed, and the passenger in that car, Jill Becker, 39, of Rice Lake was injured. Anderson was flown to an Eau Claire hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
So far no charges have been filed in Barron County Circuit Court against anyone involved in the crash. Fitzgerald said he doesn’t know details about the collision, but blood test results are pending.
While no one was killed in the high-speed pursuit of an alleged drunken driver on Sept. 8, the safety of officers, pedestrians and other drivers that Sunday evening on the streets of Rice Lake and roads of Barron County was compromised.
Police were notified of two men who appeared to be intoxicated at an establishment on the south side of Rice Lake.
The two had left before the arrival of police, and an ensuing chase, which at times reached more than 115 mph, went through downtown on Main Street, and on Haugen Avenue, Highway 53 and Highway 48 before ending in a crash that injured the passenger, according to the criminal complaint filed along with criminal charges against driver Raul A. Olea Velasquez, 28, of Tucson, Arizona.
During the pursuit, according to the criminal complaint, Olea Velasquez crashed into a Rice Lake squad car — without causing injury to the officer — seemed to try to swerve head on into a Barron County Sheriff’s squad, nearly collided with a couple of vehicles, and almost drove into the waters of Rice Lake. While driving north on Highway 48, he lost control and ending up in a ditch a short distance from the Washburn County line. The pursuit covered 30 miles, the police estimate.
The complaint also alleges that Olea Velasquez admitted to being drunk.
According to the state Department of Transportation, there were almost 23,000 convictions for operating while intoxicated in Wisconsin in 2022, and someone is injured or killed in an impaired driving crash every two hours in the state.
“All of these accidents can be prevented if people don’t drink and drive,” Fitzgerald said, expressing his frustration at the continued prevalence of OWIs. “This is the one things people can do if they want to help law enforcement out is to not drink and drive.”
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