Drunk driver kills cyclist and gets jailed.

[Amanda P]

Imagine if someone had behaved irresponsibly with a shotgun after having a few too many drinks after a shoot, and managed to shoot someone dead with it.

I think we'd expect a custodial sentence, and we'd be shocked if that person were ever allowed a shotgun license ever again.

It's just as easy to kill with a car, and for that reason, we require operators of cars to have insurance and to pass a test (neither is necessary for a shotgun license). So why, when someone proves as conclusively as this lady did that they can't be trusted with one, would we allow them to drive again?

 

[Ganymede]

I saw someone like that once at a country pub near Coventry. I was drinking in the pub garden when there was a commotion at the door leading to the rear car park. Staff and others were trying to stop a drunk getting into his Jag. I could hear them shouting that he was not fit to drive. He fell over twice trying to get into the car, but pushed the others away and slammed the door behind him. He sped away and crashed into the wall leading out of the car park, shot across the road and hit the hedge opposite, then accelerated away down the road. I hope that the police were called and managed to stop the idiot before someone got killed. He should have been banned for life too!

I once tried to wrestle the keys away from a drunken colleague (panto) - she was stronger and quicker and made her getaway - and we were all a bit pie-eyed too, but not driving. It was late at night and the roads were empty - she made it home (not far) and came in the next day extremely shamefaced and apologised to everyone. I was a lot younger then - I would like to think now that I would call the police on her. We all said to her "what if?" and impressed on her that because we'd not been able to stop her we would have felt partly responsible for any accident or injury to any third party. I think she was appalled at herself.

 

[ColinJ]

I absolutely detest drink drivers...

I do too.

I once had the horrible responsibility of having to console my weeping stepdaughter after she had taken a call telling her that one of her teenage friends had been killed in a crash caused by the friend's drunken boyfriend.

 

[Ganymede]

Come to think of it, Mr G was nearly offed a few years ago by a drink driver. Luckily Mr G was in a stouter car than the other bloke, and came off better. *Shivers*