Under the Influence

Many years ago, while taking a community college course, I was assigned to enact the part of a mother whose child had been killed by a drunk driver. My goal was to persuade the rest of the class to join M.A.D.D (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.) I don’t remember the statistics I looked up at the time about how many drunk drivers there are on the road at any given time; or how many of them kill innocent victims; and sadly, how many of them go on to be repeat offenders. I do remember feeling that our legal system is severely flawed.

Every country has penalties for drunk driving, ranging from fines, imprisonment, revocation of licenses, even lashings in Saudi Arabia. I always thought the penalty for drunkenness in Saudi was death. Evidently this is not so. There is no “legal limit” in Saudi. Alcohol is illegal. Period. So the Saudis go to Bahrain where drinking is legal. Then they drive home where an “epidemic of horrific fatal accidents (are) caused by drunk drivers.”

There are more than half the States in the U.S. with Three Strikes laws. These laws generally pertain to violent crimes such as murder, armed robbery and rape. I’m not sure why a felon should be given a chance to murder or rape a second time, much less a third. There has been talk for years about what kind of penalties should be levied for vehicular homicide while under the influence. Isn’t a vehicle a deadly weapon when operated by someone under the influence of drugs or alcohol? Shouldn’t this be included as a violent crime?

Our country enjoys (and I use the term lightly) due process of law. Every defense attorney would like to gain the status of Clarence Darrow I daresay. I’m sure you remember him from the famous Scopes-Monkey Trial, but he also gained fame and notoriety in defending two rich teenage boys from Chicago who murdered another boy for “pure love of excitement…doing something different.” Defense doesn’t seem so much getting the innocent acquitted anymore, but rather twisting words and facts to protect the guilty. “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit,” became Johnnie Cochran’s mantra during the O.J. Simpson trial for murder, even though it should be common knowledge that if you soak a leather glove in blood, it will shrink when dried.

But I digress. M.A.D.D. is a powerful organization whose purpose is to get drunks off the road, support victims and help prevent underage drinking. They don’t object to drinking, just getting behind the wheel and driving when impaired.

Who among us has not had a drink or few and then driven, at least once? Who among us have realized the potential disaster that could happen from taking this action? Who among us needs to tell a friend or relative to think before they drive drunk? I personally know a mother who lost her teenage daughter to a hit-and-run drunk driver. I cannot imagine her pain. But I wrote this for her sake, trying to describe the horror her life became when a thoughtless drunk decided to drive that night:

My child, my baby, your life too soon spun,
Taken from you before it’s begun.
How will I survive this pain that I feel?
The emptiness screams, for it is too real.

I look for you to come once again through the door,
To hear your sweet voice, if only once more.
My soul screams TAKE IT BACK, undo this pain!
Bring my child back to love once again.

My heart cries through the night,
with no respite in sight.
God rest your soul my darling, my girl,
Heaven’s new angel, my sweet precious pearl.

Please, don’t drink and drive.