There is a tremendous disconnect between what the family, friends and neighbors are saying about Diane Schuler's lifestyle and the early police reports that she was both drunk and stoned when her vehicle was racing down the wrong lanes of the Taconic Parkway before crashing into another car, killing herself and 7 others.That Schuler made a criminally wrong decision to keep driving is clear -- a brother is saying that she was sick and disoriented two hours before the crash. The brother told her to pull over and he would come get her and the 5 children who were with her. She refused and kept driving.
But was she drunk on vodka and ripped on marijuana as the police report states?
Those who knew Schuler are saying "no way."
But those toxicology reports are awfully damning. After all, they are run by professionals in a state-of-the-art laboratory who have no reason whatsoever to falsify the results.
And despite the husband's present protests of how loving, thoughtful and "clean" Diane Schuler was, he has admitted she was a "social drinker" who also occasionally smoked pot. Furthermore, the lawyer involved in defending Schuler's reputation is engaging in the wildest of speculations, all concocted (one supposes) to keep subsequent civil suits at bay.
The lawyer is suggesting Diane Schuler might have been suffering from a tooth abscess or had a lump on her leg that may have been traveling to her brain. She might even have realized she was a diabetic (a revelation, indeed, in that she had never been diagnosed as such) and could have been slugging down vodka in a misguided attempt to increase her blood sugar level.
The lawyer's and family's protestations of Diane Schuler's innocence just don't ring true, contradicted as they are by those toxicology findings, the brother's testimony and her history of stimulant use.
The case also highlights the increasing problem of drunk driving by women.
"Younger women feel more empowered, more equal to men, and have been beginning to exhibit the same uninhibited behaviors as men," said Chris Cochran of the California Office of Traffic Safety...
Nationwide, the number of women arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs was 28.8 percent higher in 2007 than it was in 1998.
The problem has caught the attention of the federal government. The Transportation Department's annual crackdown on drunken driving, which begins later this month, will focus on women.
"There's the impression out there that drunk driving is strictly a male issue, and it is certainly not the case," said Rae Tyson, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "There are a number of parts of the country where, in fact, the majority of impaired drivers involved in fatal crashes are female."
