When Will Athletes Finally Learn About Drinking and Driving?

As a police officer with considerable background in driving under the influence (DUI) enforcement, I read Bill Christine’s account of Bill Shoemaker’s return to Santa Anita with a bit of deja vu .

Shoe’s statement that he wasn’t drunk at the time of the traffic accident that put him into a wheelchair is a defense I’ve heard hundreds of times.

Few arrested for DUI are ever drunk by their own standards but are significantly impaired to safely operate a motor vehicle by standards set by their own bodies.

I’m sure Shoemaker was and is a great man both on and off a horse track. But if it can happen to a world-famous jockey, it can happen to anyone who drank “just two beers.”

PHIL COLONNELLI

Redondo Beach