While the driver of the car that struck and killed P.O. Olivieri was sober, the driver who caused the carnage, James Ryan, was arrested for drunk driving and the officer's death. Via Newsday:
Now Olivieri is dead and Ryan has been charged with driving while intoxicated and vehicular manslaughter.
Ryan's car didn't hit the officer, but authorities say his behavior ultimately led to Oliveri's death. The courts can sort out whether vehicular manslaughter is the right charge, but society still must struggle with how to stop this insanity.
There is no question that the needless death of a human being is a tragedy, whether cop or not. But rather than travel down the usual path of calling for people to exercise greater discretion, to make smarter choices and not drink and drive, this Newsday editorial goes in a very different direction.
We have the technology to install alcohol-interlock devices in every vehicle to prevent anyone who is drunk from driving. But if we believe putting alcohol-interlock devices in every car would go too far, then we must go further ourselves. Innocents killed by drunken driving have far more right to their lives than motorists have to drive without proving their sobriety.
Every car? Every person? Everyone? The rationale sounds vaguely familiar, that "innocents" (and indeed, no one can blame the victim of a drunk driver for being the victim) have more right to life than motorists have to drive without blowing into an alcohol-interlock device. But is the issue who has greater rights, or whether the right to arrive alive leads to the inexorable conclusion that everyone else's rights must suffer?
On its surface, the editorial sets up a problematic argument, since no one takes the position that the lives of innocent travelers aren't worthy of protection. Indeed, everyone on the road wants to make it home alive, and can well appreciate the notion of not being a drunk driver's next victim.
But it doesn't follow that the answer to one problem is to place the burden on everyone else, all the people who bear no responsibility for the conduct of those who are engaged in the wrong. By that line of reasoning, it would make as much sense to incarcerate us all for the drunk driving death, or perhaps do away with cars entirely. Both would deter any further drunk driving deaths, and as long as we're divorcing responsibility from the burden, isn't that all that matters?
The editorial reveals its motives when it asks, "society still must struggle with how to stop this insanity." Every tragedy does not amount to "this insanity," despite the current trend of reacting to each in melodramatic fashion and demanding a law to eliminate any possibility of harm to anyone in the future. How long before "Oliveri's Law" becomes the battle cry?
This isn't to diminish or trivialize the harm caused by drunk driving, though anyone who isn't part of stopping the insanity is accused of being in favor of people being killed by drunks, or at least indifferent to the death of innocents on the road. This is the wedge that is used to shut down thoughtfulness in favor of a bludgeon to beat us all into submission. This is the drunk driving version of "do it for the children," the excuse used regularly in an appeal to emotion without regard to reason.
As I've written numerous times before, the problem of drunk driving doesn't manifest itself in a crash, or the death of a police officer trying to help others. The problem happens at the moment a person who has had too much to drink leaves the bar and sits down behind the wheel of a car. What happens after that is merely fortuitous, whether the person makes it home safely and sleeps it off, or ends up killing someone.
The numbers of accidents involving alcohol are badly skewed, calculated in ways that make it appear that they are happening constantly when it's simply not true, The hysteria that follows obscures the problem rather than illuminates. The extraordinarily successful interest groups, led by MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving or whatever other perceived threat they want to eliminate, control the dialogue, from including alcohol in the bodies of the victims of crashes to the rumors of smells becoming proof of another drunkard. It's hard to find a meaningful solution when every discussion begins with stopping the insanity.
Yet, drunk driving is a problem that compels a solution. Harm to innocents on the road is hardly a trivial concern, whether the raw numbers are massive or invented. Police Officer Joseph Olivieri should not have died on the highway in the early morning, and even though the car that struck him was driven by a sober driver, the incident itself might not have happened but for alcohol. It's worthy of everyone's concern.
The solution, however, is not to turn us into a society of presumptive drunkards, requiring proof of sobriety before our car will start. It won't be effective, and will give rise to a wealth of unintended consequences, creating problems for people who are similarly innocent of any wrong, yet according to Newsday, held responsible because it's a simple solution.
The answer isn't to make all of society pay for the few, but to address the root of the problem without it being obscured by hysteria and appeals to emotion. Newsday's editorial may make for good drama, but does little to add to clarity of thought. More importantly, the solution to individual impropriety isn't to hold those who have done no wrong, and wouldn't do wrong, captive.
Like Newsday, I too think we need to stop the insanity. The insanity in this case is Newsday's solution to the problem.
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Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2012/10/23/stop-the-insanity-dont-make-everybody-blow.aspx?ref=rss
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