Florida Woman Allegedly Texted "Driving Drunk Woo" Minutes Before Fatal Crash

Ronnie Schreiber
by Ronnie Schreiber

Nowadays it seems as you’re almost as likely to see or hear a public service announcement about the dangers of texting behind the wheel as you are about drunk driving, but there are still plenty of “drive sober or get pulled over” billboards and PSAs. Around 4:45 AM on August 14, 2013, a 22 year old Florida woman named Mila Dago driving a rented Smart car apparently ignored all of that advice and allegedly ran a red light and broadsided a pickup truck, resulting in the death of her passenger, Irina Reinoso, also 22.

Not only did she find herself charged with DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide but now there’s a good chance she’ll be convicted because prosecutors have recently obtained a string of text messages she sent to her boyfriend that night including the self-incriminating statement “Driving drunk woo,” sent just minutes before the crash.

When police took blood from Dago almost two hours after the collision, she still had a blood alcohol level of 0.178, more than twice the legal limit in Florida. While I believe not everyone with a BAC of 0.08 is quantifiably impaired, anything close to 0.2 is bound to be pretty drunk, unless we’re talking about an active alcoholic who has developed a high tolerance for EtOH.

Prosecutors say that Dago that night and early morning was bar-hopping with friends in the midst of a less than cordial break-up with her boyfriend. The text about driving drunk was part of a series of angry messages she sent to him including one that said “I’ll be dead thanks to you,” sent around the same time. Her last text was sent just three minutes before the fatal accident (but are DUI related fatalities “accidents”?).

Dago has plead not guilty to DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide, and two counts of DUI with damage to a person, for her passenger and for the driver of the truck who was seriously injured.

Photo: Miami-Dade Corrections.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS

Ronnie Schreiber
Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, the original 3D car site.

More by Ronnie Schreiber

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 84 comments
  • Big Al from Oz Big Al from Oz on May 08, 2015

    There seems to be two issues here. Driving under the influence and using a hand held device. With the effort expended in passive safety devices, why not electronic counter measure for these two. 1. Drink driving. Police can detect alcohol in our breath. So, why doesn't vehicles come with built in detectors. 2. Cell, Mobile, Handy phones have a device that will neutralise the phone. Have the device designed so the phone can only work on Bluetooth or the equivalent. We have the technology.

  • Car-los Car-los on May 08, 2015

    In any case I think that texting while driving should be punished as severely as driving under the influence of alcohol.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
Next