BAC.08

[Drew]

I was hoping this wouldn't come up but I've been reading the paper also and I gotta put my two cents in. I just buried two close friends this past Thursday, police officers in Baltimore, killed together after being struck by a drunk driver in a pickup truck that ran a stop sign doing 50+ mph. Both officers were killed instantly and leave 3 children (3,4 and 9 years of age) between them and families. The officers were patrolling together in their marked cruiser in a residential neighborhood around 7:30 P.M. on a clear early evening when the driver of a 4wd pick up "T-boned" them....he states he never saw the stop sign.....his BAL was 0.13. Yesterday I went again to a funeral home to pay respects for the sister of an Officer, 44 years old and a passenger in a vehicle being driven by a friend whose BAL was 0.10....he didn't see the tree. The family says they didn't realize that the friend had been drinking when he arrived to pick up the woman.....the accident occurred very shortly after they left together. I'm not one much on statistics but the government says a person is 8 times more likely to have an accident at 0.08 than sober, and this might be true. What I do know is that I've been a Police Officer with Baltimore for 29 years, seen hundreds of alcohol related driving fatalities and thousands of alcohol related driving injuries and I can say without question that the majority of the drivers were not falling down, sloppy, typical Hollywood movie drunks! They almost appeared normal....and their blood alcohol levels, on the average, were between 0.05 and 0.15. I know the argument is that this law criminalizes the social drinker who is also a stand up, honorable, I love my wife and go to church on Sunday citizen, and doesn't necessarily target the chronic alcoholic. The problem is when you stand a chronic alcoholic next to Mr. honorable, who both have blood alcohol levels in the range of 0.05 to 0.10, they both show identical driving impairments, so here are my questions.

1. Is it a greater or lesser crime if the alcoholic kills you while driving as compared toMr.Honorable? 2. If the probability exists for injury to others while driving with a BAL close to 0.08, why defend the social drinker and condemn the chronic alcoholic? 3. Mr. honorable destroys your perfectly fine set of wheels, injuries you, causing missed work and the rest of your life for a while...and says "I just went to a restaurant and then dancing..." will your reply be "No problem!"?

I know in my heart that the majority of those convicted of Driving While Intoxicated did not mean to destroy property, injure or kill...there was no malice towards their victims, their only intent was to drive somewhere.

Drew



[This message has been edited by Drew (edited 10-25-2000).]