Everett Snohomish County Drunk Driving Editorial: “Far harsher penalties needed”

Everett Snohomish County Drunk Driving Editorial: "Far harsher penalties needed"

Editorial from the Everett Herald in Snohomish County

Apparently familiarity breeds acceptance, because a deadly scourge continues in our society.
What else explains our failure to make driving under the influence a crime that carries an unimaginably harsh penalty? What explains a three-year maximum sentence for "vehicular homicide"? Does such a law imply that we simply accept that a certain number of us are going to die at the drunken and/or angry hands of others when we drive, bike or walk on our roadways? Does it imply that an individual's "right to drive" is only slightly less important than a person's "right to life"?
Everyone knows that drinking and driving can be deadly. Yet first-time DUI offenders, even those who kill others, are often given a break because they have no previous record. (People with multiple arrests reflect the lack of serious consequences.)
If people faced permanently losing their license for even one DUI violation, we might prevent the anguish of seeing lives and families destroyed -- drivers and victims alike.
A recent sampling:
•In January, Camille Spink, 28, was sentenced to seven years for the 2010 wrong-way crash in Everett that killed Sheena Blair, 24, and Martin "Tony" Ramirez, 19. Luis Reyna and Marco Ortiz, both 18, suffered serious injuries.
In June, William Reardon, 43, was sentenced to three years after admitting he was drunk in August 2010 when he drove his pickup off Highway 99, killing Anita Sharma as she talked with a friend outside a Lynnwood pub.
In June, Theresa Ecklund, 43, out on bail in connection with the December death of a pedestrian, David Johnson, in Marysville, was arrested again on suspicion of drunken driving.
On July 27, Patrick Rexroat, 56, of Snohomish, was charged with vehicular homicide and reckless driving for killing Steve Lacey of Kirkland on July 24 in an apparent road rage/DUI crash. Lacey had nothing to do with the road rage incident.
On July 29, Meghan Stivers, 26, of Lake Stevens, was killed when a man driving a Dodge truck hit her vehicle while trying to elude police attempting to pull him over on suspicion of DUI.
In January, Frank Blair, father of a victim Sheena Blair, 24, who was on track to graduate from college with a degree in criminal justice, told the court:
"I think today's sentencing sends the message that vehicular homicide due to DUI is taken seriously. I hope it also sends a message that you don't have to be a bad person to kill when you're drinking and driving. We hope people will consider all five families and make the decision not to drink and drive."
Harsh penalties would help.

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20110803/OPINION01/708039982

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