Let's get serious about drunk drivers
/The Boston Herald
BEVERLY BECKHAM
The stories make headlines, then go away; you don't think of them for more than a few days because there are other stories to read and other issues to ponder, plus life to live, bills to pay, appointments to keep, children to care for, parents to tend to, and on it goes.
But if you consider that the line in the middle of the road that divides traffic is just a line not a barrier; if you acknowledge that the sidewalks on which your children walk to school, and the yards in which they play are only psychologically removed from the roads on which cars travel; if you realize that highway safety is a personal responsibility and not something the state can actually enforce, then you'd remember the stories and work for and demand stricter anti-drunk driving laws, because you'd know just how vulnerable you and every one of the people you love really are.
"I'm very, very sorry," Thomas J. O'Connor said in a Lowell courtroom at his son's arraignment Tuesday. According to police, O'Connor's son, Thomas B. O'Connor, 21, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19 percent, nearly twice the legal limit to drive, when he ran down Duane Samaros, Samaros' sister Sarah and two of Sarah's friends as they were walking along a quiet residential sidewalk in Lowell early Monday morning.
Duane Samaros, 17, died from his injuries. His sister, 14, is critically injured and may never walk again. "I know my son is very sorry," O'Connor said.
No doubt he is - sorry for the boy he killed, for the people he hurt, for his family, for himself.
Most times no one bothers to say I'm sorry. Most times the accused and his family listen to the lawyers who urge them to say nothing. Thomas J. O'Connor obviously listened to his heart. He said what should have been said. But the words can't change what happened. The words can't restore all that is gone.
Prosecutors told the court at O'Connor's arraignment that when police arrived at the scene of the crime, O'Connor was banging on the hood of his Camaro screaming, "I killed them!" Yet in court Tuesday, he pleaded innocent to charges of vehicular homicide, inflicting serious bodily injury while operating under the influence, and operating on a suspended license.
It doesn't take long for the legal machinations to begin.
O'Connor was not supposed to have been driving Monday morning. He was arrested just two months ago in Andover for speeding and drunken driving on Route 495. On Aug. 17, he was given a suspended sentence and his license was revoked for 180 days.
But he was driving anyway, because this is the way the system works. On paper, the punishment looks severe. In practice, it isn't. The courts are reluctant to put drunk drivers in jail. The police aren't able to babysit everyone convicted of drunken driving, and ordered not to drive. The result is convicted drunken drivers continue to drive drunk.
Even Gov. William Weld's new tough drunk driving law, which, after a weekend of drunken driving mayhem, has the Legislature's attention, is not tough enough. Despite an increase in fines and maximum years in jail, the bill continues to pamper people who drink and drive by giving them chance after chance after chance. Yes, the penalties increase with each conviction. But is this the most effective way to combat drunk driving? Is this the way we battle other crimes? Do we give thieves and arsonists and kidnappers and rapists more opportunities to commit their crimes over and over again?
The sad truth is we don't honestly believe drunk driving is a big enough problem to warrant rigorous controls. If we did, we'd work far more aggressively to stop it. Massachusetts has not passed any drunk driving legislation since 1986. We have a 50 percent breath test refusal rate, one of the highest in the country. Nationally, 45 percent of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related. Here, it's 55 percent. Of the 485 people killed in this state in 1992, some 265 died in alcohol related crashes - 100 more than originally reported.
The Massachusetts Advocates for Traffic Safety reported all these facts last week but, the news didn't even make a blip on the outrage scale. People were partying and having a good time.
Outrage comes only after someone has been killed. Thomas B. O'Connor should have been in jail on his previous conviction last weekend, not out driving around. If he had been, Duane Samaros would be alive today.
Jailing drunk drivers costs too much, opponents say. Not jailing them costs so much more. More than 100 motorists were arrested on Massachusetts roads in alcohol-related incidents last weekend. Two people were killed, five others seriously injured.
This carnage will continue until drunken drivers are treated as the criminals they are.
