You're at Satty's with friends. Everyone agreed that one of you would stay sober, but each time you look over at the supposed designated driver, he has a drink in his hand. At the end of the night, he says he's okay, and you don't know how much he's had to drink.
In fact, you don't even know how many you've had, but the ride back to campus is short, and you really want to get home-so you hop in his car, buckle up and keep watch for the cops.
Every weekend Duke students return from clubs, mixers and parties. Many of them ride back to campus with drivers who may or may not be over the legal limit and may or may not be drunk.
"I don't go out a single weekend where I don't question if someone who's driving is drunk," said junior Albert Norweb. "Two or three is probably all right for most people, four for some guys, especially if you're in a bar for a couple of hours. In general, we always have someone who may not be completely sober but isn't wasted."
Officially, a person can be declared drunk if his blood alcohol level is above .08, but impairment begins at a blood alcohol level of just .04, said Interim Vice President for Student Affairs Jim Clack.
Still, the difficulty of judging their own blood alcohol level doesn't seem to encourage many students to stay completely sober.
"If you go to a bar, you're going to drink at least one drink so you don't look like an idiot with no drink, even if you are driving," junior Arta Tabaee said.
In most cases, students get home without incident.
"Maybe fortunately for them, many of them have not been stopped and charged," Maj. Robert Dean of the Duke University Police Department said. "From time to time we set up license checks in different areas of the campus to try to send a message that you shouldn't be drinking and driving and that you should have a driver's license with you when you are in a vehicle."
Sometimes police make arrests at the stops; at others, they issue warnings. Clack said that to his knowledge there have been five arrests for driving under the influence on or around the Duke campus so far this year.
Several students have raised concerns that students are driving under the influence more frequently. Some cite the recent shift of greek and selective house mixers to off-campus venues because these events are no longer allowed in fraternity sections.
"I think this has become a time when no one wants to take responsibility for their actions, and I think Duke and Panhel and the national fraternities have tried to remove themselves from blame from what people do by pushing events off campus," said junior Jeff Earhart. "It's unfortunate, because their first concern should be the well-being of the students, not their financial well-being."
However, Clack and Dean both said that the ultimate liability lies with the students-and Clack added that the number of drunk driving incidents on or around the campus remains the same as in previous years, refuting student claims.
Clack did not have statistics for Chapel Hill, where many Duke students frequent bars and clubs. One male junior, who asked to remain anonymous, was recently pulled over after leaving a mixer at Chapel Hill's Gotham.
"I drove there, and it was really boring at first so I thought maybe I'd spice up my night a little bit and have a drink. Then I was having too much fun, so I kept drinking," he said. He stopped drinking over an hour before he left. He didn't think twice before getting in his car, although he said that he smelled and looked like he had been drinking.
After being pulled over, the student passed manual sobriety tests, and police charged him only with reckless driving. "I was fine to drive home, but I probably wouldn't have passed a Breathalyzer," he said. "I was lucky."
Not every student who drives while intoxicated is as lucky. Another male student who recently tried to drive back to Duke drunk found himself in jail.
"I had to bail out my friend with $1,000 at 5 a.m.," said junior Cassandra Hooks. "He was driving back from a club drunk, and when a cop pulled him over, he refused to take a Breathalyzer. His friend who was with him already had a DUI on his record, so he had no other choice."
Hooks said her friend had driven drunk several times before but had never had a problem. However, most students said they don't make a regular habit of jumping behind the wheel after drinking. They make arrangements to ensure they and their friends have safe transportation. They pass their keys to a designated driver or spend the night away from home when necessary.
"On Thursday nights I pick up a friend who lives off-campus, and then she takes SafeRides home," junior Kate Burgess said.
SafeRides will take students to off-campus locations but will not pick them up-a policy which several students have complained about.
Senior Sara Harris said her friends do not like to use SafeRides-even to get dropped off-because it leaves them too far away from their apartments in the back of the Belmont.
"Instead, they try to have one person drive and stay sober, but that never works," Harris said. "The definition they have of sober is not 'not drinking'-it's 'not drunk.'"
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