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Had a little extra help last night. A guy crashed through a parking lot next door, totalled their storage shed then crashed through my fence and came to rest against my neighbor's tree. He survived to drink another day...
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It is unfortunate that our lawmakers and justice system is not that interested in taking a lethal weapon away from hands of irresponsible people.
Instead they put more political capital towards regulating the more responsible gun owner who understands the potential of his asset. Not trying to make this political, but we all know it's illegal possession of guns that is a problem. But time after time we see people with a drinking disorder have multiple accidents, and even after they have taken other peoples lives it is not punished or socially considered as severe as if it happened with a weapon.
No I never had someone close to me killed by a vehicle, but I used to work in the field of accident reconstruction. Society does not take this serious enough. What if kids were camping out in the backyard? What if a husband or wife was in the backyard putting out the trash?
It would be interesting to find out what this person actually receives. A years loss of driving privileges? Six months in jail or rehab without monitoring after that period? -
Probably a day in jail and no driving for a year with some alcohol abuse counseling if it is his first offense. Did you know if you talk on the phone while driving in the UK it is two years lock up?
The head lines certainly do show plenty of people who legally owned a gun after they shot up a church/school/shopping mall/place of work/family in their own home/ etc. They rarely show gunmen who illegally have a gun however much of the gun violence is people who legally obtained a gun or "borrowed" a legally obtained gun. It is a problem though not anywhere near the problem of cars. Both cars and guns are powerful tools in the killing of others. Rarely are cars used to do so intentionally and they do have other uses. Still people don't fully understand how destructive cars can be and therefore don't respect them.Comment
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The headlines here in the Asbury Park Press usually has one or more people shot in a week in Asbury Park by gang members who illegally have guns. The slow days are filled in with stories of people being shot in Lakewood, Freehold, or Long Branch. Also all gang related shootings. Then we could follow up with the Star Ledger and stories about Newark, East Orange, Elizabeth...... 90% all gang related and illegally acquired guns. For this area, it's rare to see a legal owner of a weapon shooting someone.
But back to cars .... teaching my grandchildren how to drive, the first thing is we visit a salvage yard to look at the destruction. There's a lot of kinetic energy in a 3,500 lbs vehicle going 65mph. More so in my own F-350 at 7,350 lbs empty.
Your right that it's usually not intentional. Sometimes careless, sometimes reckless, but I question the intentionality when a person is drunk and get behind the wheel. While it's possible to be so drunk that you don't have a clue what your doing, you didn't start there before you had your first drink. And at some point, a common sense judgment call should have been made to go no further or not to drive. I realize in this day common sense may be hard to ask for, but when a person is only looking at a day in jail, no driving for a year, and some abuse counseling for what I consider a severe loss of control, he doesn't have enough of a deterrent in front of him. Just with the loss of driving for a year, there is a fair possibility that he will be behind the wheel of a car during that time.Comment
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Not that I disagree with you, but :D... to be fair attitudes have changed. When I was young it was quite common to go to a bar, drink and then drive home. How else would you get to a bar in the country, right? Everyone did it. Now the kids all seem to have a designated driver.
The real problem is habitual drunks: alcoholics. Alcoholics aren't really amenable to reason or persuaded by threats. One habitual drunk driver up here killed someone after being convicted of drunk driving 18 times! He was sentenced to life in prison (which might or might not be a very long prison sentence). I don't think someone should get a long prison sentence after one drunk driving accident. But certainly after 2 or 3 short sentences, if the message has not sunk in, it's time for stern measures to protect the public and to protect him from himself.Comment
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