A bill sponsored by Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho, which would allow courts to impound the vehicles of those convicted of driving while intoxicated will receive a hearing 12 noon Tuesday, April 10, before the House Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee.
Rep. Marilyn Ruestman, R-Joplin, is one of the co-sponsors of HB 885
This is nothing more than Kevin Wilson pandering to the MADD group and is really bad legislation.
ReplyDeleteWe confiscate the vehicle and gun of someone who poaches, but we allow the drunk to keep his vehicle and booze? Deer are more important than humans?
ReplyDeleteI don't see how this is bad legislation. I work in a hospital and we see numerous repeats when it comes to alcohol detox. It scares me to think of these people with blood levels 4-5 times the legal limit driving their cars as if nothing is wrong. It may not stop their drinking, but would keep them off the road. It must be incredibly easy to get off of a DWI charge, because most of the people I see at the hospital have been convicted over 2 times for DWI and still have had NO consequences.
ReplyDeleteAn important piece of legislation, but still not enough. May this comment encourage our legislators to move forward and quickly and then proceed with legislation that will bring more accountabiltiy to those who choose to drink and drive, keeping in mind those 17,000 persons killed in 2003 with the numbers hardly less in 2006 to be encouraging.
ReplyDeleteWe are the parents who will be testifying for HB885, "Casey's Law". Our son, Casey was murdered by an eight time convicted drunk driver just south of Neosho, MO., on HWY 71.
ReplyDeleteGov. Sebelius passed "Casey's Law" in Kansas in 2003. HB885 is another tool in the "tool box" to help eradicate this horrible crime. A crime that cost the tax payers the most, compared to assaults, robberies, and motor vehicle theft, yet the drunk driving crash is the only one of these crimes that is often not a felony for the first offense.
Casey had every right to feel safe driving on the highway that night. You and your family have every right to feel safe driving!
Until Missouri makes the penalties tougher than the risk, people will continue to drink and drive.
Dennis from Kansas
Drunk driving is illegal and it is just amazing to me that there are still people who continue to minimize the threat of this irresponsible action. Break a law-know, without a doubt that you are going to be penalized! Maybe this will get the attention of those in our society who feel that laws do not apply to them and willfully put others at risk each time they drive under the influence.
ReplyDeleteStanding up for the rights of law abiding drivers and pedestrians is good legislation because a car crash caused because of alcohol/substance abuse is no accident.
To a parent who looses a child or a sister that looses a sister and so on,The laws are not tough enough,I know that people drive every day over the limit with out accident but wake up people it only takes ONE time. One time to change so many lives.entire familys destroyed,Not just of the Victim the family of the accused is also torn apart. I for one hope this law passes. It is very simlpe..call a cab, walk, call a friend,and here is another call a member of that "MADD group" one of them will be glad to take you home.
ReplyDeleteFirst, let me say that I am a teetotaler and I am not wholly opposed to this law in principle. However, I have to say that those of you who think that you can make any law draconian enough to deter repeat drunk drivers must never have met such an individual. These people are compulsive drinkers who cannot be deterred because they simply cannot, or will not, consider the consequences of their actions (if they had such a capacity for rational thought then the threat of their own death via accident would be enough to deter them).
ReplyDeleteNow, if the concept is simply to punish them for their actions then that’s fine but that’s different from deterrence. Also, if the theory is that if they are in prison or don’t have a car then they won’t have the ability to hurt anyone, then, again, that may work but it is incapacitation and not deterrence. Frankly, I doubt the tougher approach will accomplish anything more then an increase in the size and cost of our prison system (at least that is all I can see that the get tough approach has accomplished with drugs trafficking).
I think more good could be accomplished by emulating the smoking model, i.e., eliminate alcohol advertising while blanketing the airways with PSA’s depicting drinking as uncool and the “big-alcohol” industry as evil scum. When I was a kid in the early 1970's every adult male I knew smoked. Now, after 30 years of a steady anti-smoking propaganda campaign, I hardly know anyone my age or younger who smokes. At the very least, we should do this at the same time we make tougher laws.