Drunk Driving? No Problem.
Image by Artanis Knarf. Some rights reserved.
Only one thing puzzled me about Paris Hilton getting 45 days in jail for violating her drunk driving probation three times: Why didn't she go to jail for driving drunk in the first place? Isn't driving drunk bad enough that 45 days in jail is a reasonable punishment?
I guess not. It's another one of those ethical eddies that flow around the brutality of the car culture.
A google search turns up dozens of articles about drunk drivers being arrested again and again and again. Here's an example from yesterday's paper Des Moines Register:
A Des Moines man has been charged with fifth-offense drunken driving after allegedly hitting a 14-year-old bicycle rider with a truck and then leaving the scene.
Jail time is typically only mentioned in articles where the drunk drivers have killed someone. And even then, jail time is far from a certainty. The Cincinnati Enquirer:
An Enquirer analysis of state data shows that more than 3,500 drivers have been convicted of drunken driving in Southwest Ohio five or more times. Another 86 have 10 or more convictions.
Almost half of the drivers arrested for drunken driving in Clermont County last year had been arrested on the same charge before.
I'm not a fan of jail time. Automatic jail time seems insane to me. Nonetheless, repeatedly tolerating dangerous behavior - waiting for a drunk to kill someone - is inhuman.
The key here, as it is in so many other things involving driving, is that "everyone does it." Destructive, horrendously stupid behavior is the norm for drivers.
People know that it's bad to driver drunk (or absurdly fast or on a cellphone or without being able to see through frost-encrusted windows.) But all drivers all do it. So, it must be okay.
Until there's a killing, no one cares.
