Sober Denver Couple Helps Drunk Driver Who Hit Their Parked Cars

In the wee hours of Sunday, December 31, Cameron Miller and Erin Pierce’s dogs went wild, barking loudly enough to rouse the couple in their west Washington Park home.

“Initially, we were just kind of like, ‘Shut up, we’re trying to sleep,’ but then our neighbor called us,” Miller recalls. “She said, ‘Hey, someone just hit Cam’s car,’ and so we went outside, and sure enough, there was a man out there in his car that had crashed into my car, which crashed into Erin’s car and into two of our neighbors’ cars.”

The man appeared to be intoxicated and immediately began saying how sorry he was. Pierce worked to calm him down, eventually inviting him into their home to wait for the police because it was cold outside and “he was so sad this happened,” she says.

His remorse contrasted markedly with that of the driver who’d hit Pierce’s parked vehicle last year, then drove away. The couple followed that driver, who refused to take responsibility even when confronted. But this time around, there was no running away from responsibility.

The man said this would likely be his second DUI. Pierce and Miller aren’t strangers to the negative impacts of alcohol; both have been sober for three years. Pierce regularly attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and has built a strong sober community in Denver.

“We both have alcoholism in both of our families, and then in college were really heavy drinkers, and after college really heavy drinkers,” Pierce says. “I have to have that sober community for my sobriety, because I definitely fucking burned my life to the ground before I got sober and had some big consequences.”

Last April, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment released an infographic showing that one in five Colorado adults drink excessively and that seven people die daily in the state because of excessive drinking. According to the CDPHE, 31 percent of people ages 25 to 34 – Pierce and Miller’s age group – binge-drank in 2022.

The pair say their personal work toward sobriety made them want to help the man who hit their cars.

“It’s an interesting reflection of, if we hadn’t made our own decisions to give up alcohol and trying to shift our mindset and our direction in life, then we could have been the ones who are driving drunk and crashing into people’s cars at 2:30 in the morning,” Miller says.

But while they have compassion, they also have money worries: Insurance won’t cover the total cost of replacing Miller’s Toyota Highlander, and they’re still waiting to see if Pierce’s Toyota Rav-4 is a total loss.

“We both rely on vehicles for transportation to work, and that’s kind of one of the biggest challenges right now, is that we went from being a two-car household to a zero-car household,” Miller says.

He’s a teacher in the neighborhood and can ride his bike to school, so he plans to do that – but with winter setting in, he’s concerned about snow and icy conditions. Pierce works a hybrid job and is supposed to go to the office two days a week; for now, her company is allowing her to work 100 percent remotely while they figure out the vehicle solution.

The couple is still paying off the Rav-4; if it is totaled, they will have to keep making payments on a car that is no more. Miller’s mother set up a GoFundMe for $8,000, which would cover the gap between what Pierce’s car is worth and the amount of the loan.

Then they would be at ground zero entering the car market. According to a September 2023 analysis from used car retailer iSeeCars, Denver is the second-most-expensive city in which to buy a used car in the country, with used cars costing $3,000 more here than the national average.

Still, they’re keeping a positive attitude. “I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt, and I’m super bummed and stressed about finances right now, but this is just part of life,” Pierce says. “It was awesome that we could show him grace, because you don’t earn grace. You just get grace and you just give it away.”

The driver was arrested for driving under the influence and careless driving. “The case involves the crash of a motorist into multiple parked vehicles,” according to the Denver Police Department, which did not release additional details.