Throw Away the Key

While we're tracking down twelve million illegal immigrants with angry talk about kicking them out of the country or just shooting them at the border, let's do something about removing drunk drivers from the roads. Not just overnight or for a few months -- but for real and for good. 

Don't just put mangled cars on the lawns outside high schools during prom week. Or interview the presidents of MADD and SADD.  Assign special drunk license plates and driver's licenses to convicted souses. So everybody can watch for them. Especially the police.

How about finally making these creeps accountable for killing people when they're impaired? GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL. Or in a new twist on community service, let them be crash dummies for a day.

I also think blood tests should be mandatory for everyone involved in any accident because nobody thinks twice about driving no matter what's in their systems. Above the legal limit for alcohol, you're automatically under house arrest and your license is revoked for five years.

I'm not just talking about drunks, either, but people with seizure disorders or people on prescription pain medication. Unfortunately, most of us think that impaired only means stuff like marijuana and alcohol. I think Levitra could even be a distraction. Or being too tired. Book 'em Dano.

But let's get the drunks first. Especially when they're repeat offenders like the terrible story of the twenty year old Arizona kid who has had seven traffic infractions in four years, three of which were DUI's. You have to be a serial stupid driver to have that kind of record.

After this past weekend that doofus should now become the poster child for raising the age for a driver's license to twenty-one. Or, in some cases, twenty-five.

This kid, who lives in student housing and was driving a Mustang -- no doubt a gift from Mom and Dad -- ran a redlight. Young people think traffic lights are there to stop other people, not them. There seems to be an entire generation of youths who consider a stoplight merely a suggestion. Stop if you're in the mood.

But on this occasion, the eighth time this addle-brained dope screwed up while driving, he killed somebody.  And not just anybody. A beloved motorcycle cop. The first police officer on his force to die in the line of duty in eight-six years. 

Drunk as a skunk, maybe even high, and in broad daylight, this kid was so out of it he impaled the motorcycle with the front grill of his car, where it exploded and burned.

After the crash, which had sent the police officer flying from his motorcycle and left him dying on the road, this young drunk and his passenger both ran away from the scene of the accident.

I keep calling the kid a drunk based on his DUI's. But some judge already agrees because he mandated AA as part of one of an earlier plea bargain which put this waste of life back on the road.

There is a rule of thumb, according to a relative of mine in AA, that if you've been arrested for two DUI's you are an alcoholic. In case you're counting.

He didn't even bother to check to see how badly the officer was hurt. Apparently he and his friend were absent when the gene for good character got handed out.

I hope that this young person who has been given multiple free passes through his short but sorry life finally has to be accountable for his depraved disregard for others. So far he's only received a slap on the wrist. Unfortunately, I wouldn't expect much more this time either. Unless killing a police officer means something for once.

The irony of the officer's tragic and completely unnecessary death is twofold. He died going to work as part of a DUI detail getting drunks off the road. And tonight is the night of a special program held each year in Arizona to remember fallen police officers.

There won't be a dry eye in the state.