Convict’s experiences are precautionary tale

Anyone thinking about drinking and driving this New Year’s holiday should meet Joseph Goggin.

The 36-year-old Spokane man is incarcerated at Geiger Corrections Center, where he’ll be until sometime next year.

After three drunken driving convictions, Goggin spends his days with hundreds of other men labeled as criminals, some of whom made the same choice he did – got behind the wheel after a few drinks.

“The thing about DUIs is they never go away,” Goggin said. “They follow you around wherever you go.”

Area law enforcement will be working overtime this weekend looking for impaired drivers who made the same bad choice. The New Year’s holiday is a time when drinking and driving tends to spike.

“Or sometimes it’s the one time a year when everybody does what we tell them to,” said Trooper Jeff Sevigney of the Washington State Patrol. “Either way, our message is, go out and have a great time, but we just want people to be responsible.”

Looking back, Goggin wishes he had been more aware of his actions.

He was on probation for his second DUI offense when he was pulled over in July. He was driving to his sister’s home two miles away, to deliver a tent so his brother could go camping.

Goggin was arrested a third time, and as a repeat offender was sentenced to a year in jail. He lost his job in a sawmill, has been taken away from his 11-year-old daughter, and owes thousands of dollars in court fees. The fine alone for the latest arrest was $2,600.

He will have an ignition interlock device – where a driver takes a breathalyzer to start their car – on his vehicle until 2011, and won’t get his license back for four years after his release.

Goggin will spend, and has already spent, many hours in alcohol and drug treatment – some of which he’ll pay for.

And how does he describe his daily life in the minimum security facility?

“Smelly, loud … it’s kind of like being in high school again, only with everyone being in detention,” Goggin said.

If he’s lucky, Goggin gets to go outside to pick up trash on the side of the road. But each time he comes back, he has to be strip-searched.

He also has to share space with criminals bragging about stealing cars or committing other crimes, some of whom only spend 90 days in jail compared with his 365 for drinking and driving.

“It seems so unfair, but I don’t blame anybody because I made the choice,” Goggin said. “I knew the laws.”

Goggin has also sat before victims’ panels, where those who have lost a family or friend at the hands of a drunk driver get to tell their stories, with pictures.

“It’s really sad,” Goggin said. “I think about my own daughter.”

According to the State Patrol, drunken driving is still a leading cause of car-related deaths. Of the 199 fatal collisions investigated this year, 37 of those involved a drunk driver, Sevigney said.

And laws for repeat offenders are about to get stiffer in 2007, when Gov. Chris Gregoire is expected to sign a bill that makes a fifth drunken driving conviction within 10 years a felony. Right now it’s a gross misdemeanor.

But even with stricter drunk-driving laws, the problem doesn’t seem to be subsiding.

“We’re well over 17,000 DUI arrests this year,” Sevigney said. “That’s up from last year.”

Since November the WSP has been running a DUI emphasis patrol, which will continue through the first of the year in an effort to curb drunken driving.

Goggin lends this piece of advice for New Year’s revelers who may be tempted to drive home after a few libations:

“Get a ride.”