WHEN WILL WE FIX THESE LAWS?

Early last week, The Dallas Morning News carried the story of a tragic accident in our city, which injured several people and killed a newlywed couple. I use the term "accident" loosely, only because I'm fairly sure that the individual who caused the carnage didn't deliberately set out to do it.

Of course not. When he deliberately started drinking, and then made the deliberate decision to get in his car and drive, I'm sure he thought he was doing just fine. He thought he was doing just fine on the four previous occasions when he drove drunk, was arrested, lost his license, paid fines, did a little jail time, etc., ad nauseum. Therefore, I can only assume that he thought he was doing nothing wrong this time, either. Or didn't care. You would think the fact that the state had lifted his license would have given him a clue, but obviously it didn't. He just simply didn't care.

No one but a deliberate murderer would knowingly do what he did, I suppose. Yet, the uncomfortable truth is, this drunk driver murdered that young couple, just as surely as if he had leveled a gun at them and fired.

This useless little creep, this waste of space and oxygen, had no fewer than four previous DWI arrests, and had led police on merry chases in the past. And yet, inexplicably, he was out on the streets behind the wheel of a vehicle while drunk, yet again. The article states that he "may" have been driving on a suspended license. Well, I would certainly hope his license had been suspended, after four previous convictions, but the fact that he was driving anyway clearly illustrates the fact that a suspended license is meaningless. He just got in his car and blundered away to deliver death to innocent people.

How sad that the law doesn't see it that way. No, the law sees him as just another drunk with bad judgment, someone to be slapped on the wrist, fined a few hundred dollars, allowed to sit in air-conditioned comfort in a cell for a few days, and then released on an unsuspecting public yet again.

According to the newspaper account, he had been held on a $3500 bond for his last offense, bond had been increased by a wise judge to $100,000, then for some reason lowered again to $3500, which he posted and went free. For the paltry sum of $350 (you do know that you only have to post 10% of bond, right?) he walked out the door and set himself on a course that would ultimately snuff out the lives of a young couple who had been married just two months before. Why was he on the road?

I recall a case a number of years ago that has haunted me ever since. A young trooper had stopped to change a tire for an elderly lady, well off the road on I-20. A drunk driver blew by, driving on the shoulder of the road, and struck and killed the young officer, leaving a grieving widow and a couple of kids. A sad story, indeed. Sadder yet when it was revealed that the driver had no fewer than 42 convictions (not just arrests, but convictions) for drunk driving. Again, why was he on the road?

Someone once explained it to me that a tremendous source of revenue for the state would be lost if these habitual DWIs were taken off the road. Just look at all those 42 arrests, and imagine how much that man paid in fines over the years! That's a cynical view that chills me, and while it may well be true, I'd prefer not to think about it. Is that the price of a trooper's life, of the lives of the newlyweds? No, I just can't go there.

Still, I have to wonder. Why have we not enacted some laws that have some big, sharp teeth in them, and why have we not at least actively enforced the wimpy laws we do have? Why are these people still on the road? Obviously, just suspending a driver's license has no impact on the majority of these creeps.

A drunk doesn't care whether his license is legal or not. The only thing that will keep him off the streets is jail. Here's a suggestion. First offense - suspended license for a year or so. There are a precious few people for whom this will be a wakeup call, and it won't happen again. Second offense or driving on a suspended license - automatic jail time, at least a year. Third time - ten years, no exceptions. I know, our laws don't support that. Then let's change them! Obviously, lives are at stake.

First offense - shame on the offender. Second offense - shame on society. The death of innocent people is a high price to pay for the gutlessness of our laws and the lack of enforcement thereof.