It’s been 118 years since the first arrest for drunk
driving.
On September 10, 1897, a young London cab driver named
George Smith was driving tipsy when he slammed his taxi into a building. He was
fined 25 shillings.
We’ve had a long time to try to deal with the too often
fatal consequences of drunk driving. We haven’t made a lot of progress.
Think about in these terms: everybody knows it’s illegal and
dangerous to drive drunk, but the structure of enforcement is that cops have to
try to catch the offender while he’s actually doing it so the intoxication test
can be administered in a timely way that will hold up in court.
Penalties are too light to significantly prevent repeat
offenses. More than half of convicted drunk drivers continue to drive with suspended licenses.
I guess it’s true that people have been driving drunk ever
since we learned how to ride animals.
I guess it’s a comfort to think that
folks who were riding horses drunk never killed anybody else.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.
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