Nothing about DWIs will change until laws change
I HAD sent a letter to Gov. (Susana) Martinez about the ad on TV, “You drink. You drive. You lose.” In my opinion, that is a farce, a lie. It should be “They drink. They drive. You lose and/or you die.” The lawyers are already screaming … their rights! Where is that law located at? Let me see where any law, anywhere in the United States of America, states that it is your right to drink, drive, hurt, maim or kill innocent people!
Being an alcoholic myself, I know about being drunk, getting into my vehicle and driving from Point A to Point B without remembering how I got home! No memory whatsoever! I never hit anyone and never went to jail for hurting anyone.
I am assuming a drunken driver wakes up the next morning, and does not even remember driving and hitting anyone or why he/she is in jail! Why not keep them in jail until they are sober and then take them to the ER to see what happens to people who have been hurt by a drunken driver? Then take them to a morgue to see what happens when people are killed by a drunken driver. They have to see what they did. The scene has to be embedded in their mind.
Do not bother to send them to watch a movie about drunken driving. They do not get anything out of it. Why? It is just a movie! They are sober. “Where’s the popcorn? That doesn’t even look like me!”
Nothing will change until the law changes. If they borrow a vehicle from a friend or a relative, then that person will have to pay a fine and pay for a new license plate with something on it to shame them for aiding and abetting a drunken driver. Isn’t that a crime? Or has that law been changed?
We quit drinking in 1996 and do not miss it at all! I got fed up with hearing the owner’s wife brag about her latest vacation! All we were going to get out of it was a hangover! Now we are able to go on vacation and see what the USA has for us to enjoy, like the Sequoias in California. Or a lighthouse in Oregon where you can climb the stairs and look out over the ocean, if you have the strength! The rooms are so tiny and yet the keepers of the lighthouses had families that were privileged to live such a life.
I keep thinking that until someone in government loses a loved one in a drunken driving accident, nothing will change.
Our ancestors were immigrants. The Native Americans took care of their home. They took care of the land and the animals that fed and clothed them. And they were forced off their land to somewhere none of us wants to live!
But that is the way of the world today. People have been killing people since Cain killed Abel, his only brother, and this will never stop. For people do not know how to live in peace and enjoy the land they live in.
HONEY KNEVITT Moriarty