Look at his hair, or listen to his pointless band, and you wouldn’t assume Richie Sambora to have a very astute sense of self-awareness.

But, hey, threatening a man with prison for being a terrible father tends to make people snap to attention. Which is why Richie Sambora has pleaded guilty to DUI after police arrested him for swerving about the highway like a pissed-up ninny.

And, thanks to the magic of the plea deal, Richie Sambora’s sudden bout of guilt means that he’s got away with three years probation instead of a jail sentence. It’s a win-win for all involved – lessons have been learned, the crowded prison system gets one inmate less to deal with and Richie Sambora’s daughter gets three solid years of ostentatious presents from her father as he attempts to buy back her love after he drove around with her while drunk. Heartwarming.

It’s no wonder that Richie Sambora has alcohol issues – if we had to listen to Bad Medicine night after night we’d have turned to the bottle long ago too, and he has to actually play the bloody thing – but there’s a comes a time in every man’s life when they stop being the kind of fun drunk who’ll wake up on the kitchen floor and can’t remember why they’re dressed as an Iranian prostitute and become the sort of drunk who’ll drive around hammered with their 10-year-old daughter in the passenger seat.

And for Richie Sambora, that time came last month. Richie Sambora was arrested for DUI on the Pacific Coast Highway after police noticed his Hummer swerving from lane to lane. That’s bad enough as it is, but throw in the fact that Richie Sambora’s daughter and another girl were passengers in the car and ‘bad’ instantly becomes ‘vastly mornic’.

As a result of the arrest. prosecutors wanted to haul Richie Sambora up on a child endangerment charge. However, thanks to insufficient evidence, they just had to make do with plain old DUI – something that Richie Sambora’s only too happy to admit. And now Sambora’s been sentenced for it, as BBC News reports:

Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora has been sentenced to three years’ probation after admitting to driving under the influence of alcohol. The 48-year-old pleaded no contest, prompting the judge in Santa Ana, California to drop a second charge. Sambora, who was not at the court hearing, will also have to attend first offender alcohol awareness classes… Sambora is forbidden from having any measurable quantity of alcohol in his system while driving as a condition of his probation.

So Richie Sambora, who just admitted to driving while drunk, can’t drive drunk any more? What a novel punishment. Still, at least it’s only for three years, after which we can presume that Richie Sambora is free to get shitfaced on whatever he likes right before he goes for a pootle.

However, Richie Sambora’s real punishment will be having to live with the fact that he drove drunk with his daughter in the car – one of the stupidest things a parent can do. That’s penalty enough for any man.

Plus, now Richie Sambora has avoided jail, which is good because it means that Bon Jovi are free to tour the world and record new albums and… hang on a minute, that isn’t good at all. That’s literally the worst outcome possible. Arse.

Read more:

Drink-drive sentence for Sambora - BBC

In the past the nearest you could get Bon Jovi to child endangerment involved playing Blaze Of Glory at a toddler until it cried and/or crapped itself.

But not any more – not since Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora was arrested for driving his Hummer around Laguna Beach all shitfaced with his 10-year-old daughter in the passenger seat.

Unsurprisingly the police have taken a rather dim view to it all, and have recommended that prosecutors go all out to hit him with a misdemeanor child endangerment charge. But, really, whatever criminal charges may or may not be be brought against him, Richie Sambora will have to live with the emotional upset that comes with knowing that he endangered the life of his daughter in a moment of stupidity. And, on top of the emotional upset he’s already got from being in a really rubbish band, that’s going to be quite a lot of upset.

Between his terrible mullety haircut, his propensity for getting hammered, his awful band and his role in Earth’s stupidest-ever love triangle, Richie Sambora has enough on his plate at the moment. With so many conflicting desires, it’s no surprise that Richie ended up taking the easy way out.

Actually, that’s a lie. Getting arrested on suspicion of drunk driving while your daughter is in the car isn’t actually all that easy at all – you have to get drunk, find your car keys, round up your 10-year-old daughter, convince her that taking a ride with her obviously drunk father is a good thing to do, focus on the road long enough to pull out of the drive and then somehow manage to catch the attention of the police, all before the booze wears off – but you catch our drift.

And that’s what Richie Sambora managed to do recently. At the end of last month, Richie Sambora was arrested on suspicion of DUI with his daughter as a passenger. Richie still hasn’t been charged with anything yet, but the police seem pretty hell-bent on making the whole ‘child endangerment’ thing as official as possible. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Bon Jovi star Richie Sambora will be charged with misdemeanor DUI and child endangerment, if police officials get their way. The rocker’s daughter and her cousin were passengers in his vehicle when Sambora was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving last month, and police want prosecutors to get tough with him.

If it turns out that Richie Sambora really was driving drunk with his daughter in tow, then he probably deserves whatever charges can be hurled at him. Drunkenly smash your car into a tree and die, shame on you. Drunkenly smash your car into a tree drunk and kill your daughter then double shame on you, you massive boozy halfwit. That’s how it goes, isn’t it?

But just because Richie Sambora potentially faces a child endangerment charge, it doesn’t mean that he’s automatically going to jail. It’s just a misdemeanor child endangerment charge, so perhaps if Richie’s convicted he can get away with community service at a local factory and nothing more.

If that’s the case, though, perhaps it’s best not to let Richie anywhere near the forklift. Especially not if the factory’s anywhere near a primary school.

Read more:

Police Want To Get Tough With Sambora – SFGate

As a member of Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora's life is mainly about pedal-to-the-metal rock and roll rebellion. And dodgy haircuts.

But anyway, back to the rebellion. Time was that to be a rebel you only had to get drunk and drive around in your car for a while. But now that everyone from Paris Hilton to most of the stars of Lost have done that, the bar had to be raised. Which is why Richie Sambora apparently got drunk and drove around with his own 10-year-old daughter in the car with him.

And now Richie Sambora might be hit with child endangerment charges for it. How many times, Richie? You should only get drunk and endanger the lives of your passengers when your passengers are the other members of Bon Jovi, not kids. That's just stupid, although the Bon Jovi thing really should be actively encouraged.

If Richie Sambora could learn one thing from being in Bon Jovi, it's that driving along a road is a suitable metaphor for life. Crossroads, Lost Highway, Seat Next To You, Born To Be My Baby, It's My Life – all songs that very clearly state that life is like a road. However, hardened Joviists – once their brain medication wears off – will be able to tell you that not one of these songs mentions veering about this road all shitfaced with a terrified ten-year-old girl in the passenger seat.

Richie Sambora needs to do some boning up on the wisdom of Bon Jovi, in that case.

Although Richie Sambora's struggles with alcohol are well known, possibly stemming from having to balance having the world's most complicated love life with being in the world's most fist-gnawingly awful band, up until now he'd managed to avoid combining getting hammered on booze with bombing around in a car with his own daughter in it.

But on Tuesday night that's exactly what Richie Sambora was arrested for. The New York Daily News reports:

Rocker Richie Sambora could face criminal charges of child endangerment after being busted on a DUI charge Tuesday night. Cops in Laguna Beach, Calif., tell us they're investigating whether there's enough evidence to hold the Bon Jovi guitarist responsible for putting his 10-year-old daughter, Ava, and another child at risk. Police pulled over Sambora, 48, at 10:52 p.m. on the Pacific Coast Highway after spotting his car "weaving within lanes," Laguna Beach Sgt. Jason Kravetz tells us. "The officers smelled alcohol on his breath and did several field sobriety tests. He failed [all of them] and was arrested."

Richie Sambora is due in court on May 7, although he's yet to be charged with anything pending results of a blood test. If the tests do test positive for alcohol, though, the extent of Sambora's fall from grace will be immense. Of all the boneheaded things you could possibly do, weaving around on a road drunk with your own child on board is right up there with trying to dislodge pieces of biscuit from plug sockets with your tongue and, well, being in Bon Jovi.

Hopefully this arrest will have some long-term benefits, though – the shock should be enough to sent him back to rehab where he can take his recovery seriously. Plus if Richie Sambora ends up going to prison, Bon Jovi won't be able to release any more albums for a while. Great – if only more acts we didn't like seriously endangered the lives of their own children while drunk. Oh Johnny Borrell, when will you have children just so you can almost drive them into a tree?

Read more:

Richie Sambora busted for DUI – New York Daily News