Spoiled Rich Girls aren't learning a dang thing - Celebutante justice in L.A.

One of my favorite commercials is the one in which three different guys are swerving down city streets with their cars full of beer, red wine, and vodka respectively. They get to a police checkpoint, roll down their windows, and booze pours out of the car onto an officer’s feet, followed by the question,”Sir, have you been drinking tonight?” The spot ends with a warning, “You drink, you drive, you lose.”

In Los Angeles, celebutante justice is making a joke out of drunk driving laws. Two cases last week got me wondering: what would have happened to me? What if I had pulled a Nicole Richie and used an off-ramp to merge onto the 134 in Burbank, was driving the wrong way in the carpool lane when the Highway Patrol pulled me over, then gave the officers the excuse that I was whacked out of my mind on weed and Vicodin?

What would my punishment have been if I had pulled a Lindsay Lohan and gotten arrested for DUI in May after crashing my car into a tree in Beverly Hills (then fleeing the scene), went to rehab for six weeks, turned myself into police, and four days later stole a car with two people in it, chased another car down PCH from Malibu at 100 mph, tore through the streets of Santa Monica at 85 mph chasing another car to the police station where I lied to police (saying I wasn’t driving), failed a field sobriety test because my blood alcohol level was over .12, and had cocaine in my pocket when they arrested me?

I know what wouldn’t have happened. Unlike Nicole, my father isn’t a Commodore so I wouldn’t have been sentenced to serve only four days for my second DUI arrest in five years (especially when the minimum sentence for a second offense is supposed to be five days) and I would have been in custody a good deal longer than the 82 minutes it took to process and release her. And unlike Lindsay (and Malibu’s other most wanted drunk driver, Mel Gibson), I can’t afford to hire Blair Berk, the miracle worker who got the charges against Lindsay reduced to two counts of being (not driving) under the influence of cocaine, two counts of driving with a blood alcohol level above .08, one count of reckless driving, and got both DUI charges dropped so Lindsay will serve only one day (if that) in jail.

I would be locked up in the Men’s Central Jail right now – which is one of the main reasons why it’s not me we’re talking about. Like Nicole and Lindsay, I’ve been known to enjoy a substance or two. But unlike them, I know what would happen to me if I got arrested for DUI, so I don’t drive when I’m partying. If you went to a suburban high school like I did, you learned that lesson sometime between sophomore and junior year and you may or may not have had the point driven home by having to attend a classmate’s funeral.

It’s a lesson Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan never learned – and it’s a shame that it’s a lesson the criminal justice system in Los Angeles county is failing to teach them. Because Nicole and Lindsay are what I call “SRG’s” or “Spoiled Rich Girls” - and SRG’s have no concept of reality. They’ve been coddled and pampered their whole lives by their parents and teachers, they’ve been protected from the real-world consequences of their actions, and have never been held accountable for the decisions they make. They don’t listen to their fathers, they don’t listen to their mothers, and they definitely don’t listen to their boyfriends, fiancés, or husbands. An SRG will only listen to two people: another SRG or a police officer - because the only things an SRG fears is the loss of her friends and the loss of her freedom. In a city and county full of SRG’s, Los Angeles should send a consistent message when it comes to drunk driving.

In Paris Hilton’s case, Judge Michael Sauer understood that. When he learned she was sent home after serving five days of her forty-five day sentence, Judge Sauer sent her back to jail. The message was clear: you drink, you drive, you lose. But in Nicole’s case (two DUI’s in five years) and Lindsay’s case (two DUI’s in two months), the message is: you drink, you drive, you lose about an hour-and-a-half out of your day. It’s a message I’m sure every SRG in Los Angeles received loud and clear. And if you think it’s going to scare them into not driving home from Les Deux or the Green Door after a night of partying, you’ve got another think coming.