Kelly Hart had driven the long stretch of rural highway many times. The road stretched between two small towns; the one to which she had recently moved and the one she was coming from that night. Her friend from high school lived in the other town. The two girls had been bar hopping, singing karaoke and in general having a wonderful time. Now it was a little after one on Saturday morning. Kelly was on her way home. Although she had been drinking, Kelly was confident that she was perfectly fit to drive.
Traffic was very sparse on the road in the early morning. There wasn't much of anything between the two small towns but farms and farmers, a couple of subdivisions and a long since closed service station. For the most part the road was straight and the land was flat. Although Kelly had Metallica blaring through the speakers of her Chevy Impala, the lateness of the hour began to make her eyelids heavy. A patch of fog loomed ahead, and though it didn't look like much as she approached, it quickly became very thick. Kelly heard the clicking of her tires on the center line reflectors and realized that she was drifting into the other lane. As that realization hit her, she was suddenly staring into the headlight of an oncoming motorcycle. She veered hard to the right and managed to avoid the motorcycle, but in the process left the road, slid down a slight bank and ended up narrowly missing a barbed wire fence at the edge of a field.
For a moment Kelly sat with her foot jammed on the brake, trying to catch her breath. Her heart was racing. That had been way to close. The fog bank was still thick but it looked like she could get back on the road if she drove up just a few more yards. As she took her foot off the brake, a sudden presence of red and blue flashing lights made her heart jump again. She looked back over her left shoulder to the source of the lights. It was the motorcycle. Kelly had nearly hit a motorcycle cop!
As the man approached, Kelly rolled down her window. She was fighting back the tears because she knew he wasn't going to have much sympathy for her. Her husband Tom was going to be furious. She was going to jail. She was going to lose her license.
"License and registration," the officer said to her. She had to dig her license out of her wallet, which was in her purse. The registration was in the glove box. By the time she handed the officer what he'd asked for, her hands were shaking uncontrollably. The man's face was resolute. More than that, he looked pissed.
"Step out of the car, please," he commanded. "Have you been drinking tonight, Ma'am?"
"I... I had a couple of drinks earlier," she stammered out. "But only a couple."
The officer walked back to his bike and talked for a moment on the radio. Then he returned with a machine and a plastic tube wrapped in plastic. "Okay, Ma'am, I'm going to ask you to blow into this machine. You have the right to refuse, but that just means we'll get a court order and you'll have to do it anyway."
