Vocabulary notes

Reckless неосторожный

Task 3. Read the text again and make sure you know all underlined parts of the text. Give their Russian equivalents

Task 4. Answer the following questions:

1. What events took place on January 18, 1978?

2. What happened to Rowan after David's first birthday?

3. How many times was he sent to an alcohol-counseling program?

4. Why did Rowan get a 45-day jail sentence less than a month after David's third birthday?

5. What convictions did Rowan have on the moment the accident occurred?

Task 5. Ask questions to which the following statements are the answers:

1. He was allowed to plead guilty to reckless driving.

2. Just after David's second birthday, Rowan was arrested in Santa Ana, Calif.

3. Two months later he was again arrested in Santa Ana.

4. He was involved in a hit-and-run accident.

5. The charges were dismissed when the witness couldn't be located.

6. His driver's license was revoked through 1983.

7. They were waiting for the ice-cream man.

8. His friend Peter Kroll was also four.

Task 6. Explain in English what the words and word combinations mea. Use them in your own sentences

Hit-and-run, to take a test, driver's license, to suspend, downtown, conviction, the route, neighborhood, the accident, to occur, probation, to dismiss the charges

Task 7. Practice the speech patterns given below. Make up two sentences of your own on each pattern

1. Rowan was arrested in Anaheim, Calif., and again pleaded guilty to driving while under the influence of alcohol. He confessed to smuggling a few grams of cocaine.

2. Rowan was arrested in Santa Ana, Calif., twice in five weeks for driving while under the influence of alcohol. He was punished twice for violating the same rule.

3. Peter was on his way to join David at the corner on 4th Street when the accident occurred. Don’t forget to post the letter on the way to the office.

4. His driver's license, suspended several times before, was revoked through 1983. A chemical test showed that Rowan had a 0.27-percent blood-alcohol level, almost three times the lev­el specified by California law for presumption of intoxication.

5. At their first sight of the truck, they would run home, their voices filled with laughter, for their ice-cream mon­ey. All formalities completed, they could relax and have lunch at last.

6. On a Saturday afternoon last March, Rowan drove away from a downtown bar in Santa Ana, where, according to police, he had been drinking. The police said David had been obeying the rule.

Task 8. Make the summary of the text. Use the key words and word combinations

Text 2

Task 1. Answer the questions:

1. Why are drunk drivers so dangerous?

2. Do you know how many people are killed on the roads by drunk drivers?

3. What is the punishment for the driver who hits a pedestrian?

Task 2. Read the text to get the main idea paying special attention to the underlined parts of the text (key words and word combinations)

"We always told him not to get any closer to the curb than this," Richard Gunderman, David's step­father, said later, pointing to a spot eight feet from the corner. The police said David had been obeying the rule.

Kelly Jean Webb was driving down Grand Avenue when a 1972 Chevrolet edged into her lane and bumped her car. She glanced at the driver; he was hunched low and leaning his head back against the seat.

"He was weaving a lot," Webb said. "All of a sudden he sped up. I was going about 20 or 25, and he was just flying. I heard a screech, like metal on metal. He went up on the curb. I heard a thump. Then he went back into the street, then up on the opposite curb. I knew he hit something, but I didn't know what."

Webb found out as soon as she got out of the car. What she saw was a little boy — David. A piece of his forehead had been torn off. His glasses, which had been strapped on, were lying across the street.

David's mother, Suzanne, was on the scene within seconds. "One look and you could tell," she said. "He wasn't dead, but he had no chance of living."

Meanwhile, two neighbors ran to the car to help anyone inside. They saw William Rowan move to the passenger side of the car and try to kick open the door. The door was jammed fast against the curb, so Rowan finally stopped trying. Witnesses said he then sat back and lit a cigar.

When the police arrived, Rowan denied being the driver. On the strength of statements by three wit­nesses, however, he was arrested. A chemical test showed that Rowan had a 0.27-percent blood-alcohol level, almost three times the lev­el specified by California law for presumption of intoxication. He was booked into the Orange County jail and released a day later on $5000 bail.

The Gundermans wanted Row­an to pay. "I want this guy to get what's coming to him," said Richard Gunderman, who had filed to adopt his wife's son by a previous marriage.

"Why do judges keep letting him off?" Suzanne Gunderman asked. "They have to make him think about what he did."