So during ur entire lifetime, you have not done this? you are saying you NEVER drove 'drunk' before? even one drink? I doubt this, most people has done this, usually more than 3 times... I already said I dont think she should drive.. But what if it was YOU or ur mother or sister who got 15 years i think your perspective would be different.. If she drove drunk hit and killed someone.. THEN its manslaughter.. then yeah 15 year sentence is probably still not enough.. but you cant give them 15 years when they crashed into a tree totaling their own car.. makes no sense..
I dont drink alchohol and have never drove "drunk" neither has anyone in my family if you must know and if I or they had, since they live here, they must obey the law, and should get 15 years in prison Like I said before Driving is not your right, its a privelage given to you If your going to drink do it responsibly you're basically saying its okay to drive drunk, and the most you should get is what a traffic citation? that is disturbing
Was that really what I was saying? you should show me where, im interested. people make dumb decisions, the average college student have acted 'irresponsible' like this at some point.. if everyone were to get 15 years for this we'd be missing half our population... but hey you also support the death penalty right? since its not you it doesnt hit close to home.. ID REALLY like to see how u feel if it was one of your family members neck on the line.. this isnt a debate about whether driving drunk is bad or good.. its about the severity of the punish.. i dont think its justified.. you dont give someone a manslaughter type sentence, no matter how close they got to it, if they didnt actually commit manslaughter.. 15 years is ridiculous, there has to be another way.. but hey we live in a country where our president went to war to 'strike first' right?
by the way, everyone deserves another chance... if she was that close to 15 years as she said, i think this one might of woken her up.. if not, she'll eventually get caught again.. then no one including herself can say she didnt have it coming
It was her third offense, so you basically implied here that she should have gotten easy, by say a traffic citation. I mean you dont have to type it, but that is what you were saying. And how do i support the death penalty? i have been against it. You shouldnt ASSume things and i have also been against going into iraq Dont put words in someone elses mouth. I mean to make any kind of argument you should have facts. The fact is half of the fatal accidents caused in the US are by drunk drivers, hence why i think the penalty should be manslaughter. I'm not saying it should be on the first offense, but in her case it was a third offense which is 15 years, and like another poster mentioned it usually amounts to a lot less, but most of them learn their lesson. So yes, I do think a DWI should be treated as "harshly" as it is in Texas. In the US there is a thing called strict liability and you are responsible for your actions, wonderful country we live in. And you have a wonderful argument, trying to tell me how I would feel if a member of my family was in the same position. Let me repeat it since you obviously did not catch it the first time, if they broke the law, they have to pay the price. May not be easy but that's life.
I don't think half of our population has 2 strikes. I dont even think half our population has 1 strike. I don't even think half our population drives drunk. People who drive drunk are no better than online pedophiles. If people convicted of insider trading and other corporate marauders get 7-10 years in jail time, as seen with recent events, I see no harm in sentencing someone who is liable or potentially liable of causing bodily harm or even death to a much longer sentence.
yeah i think half our driving ADULT population has had a drink and hopped behind the wheel before completely sobering up(especially those who went to college) AT SOME POINT in their life..... TECHNICALLY SPEAKING "they drove after drinking".. if youre gonna dish out 15 years for DWI.. might as well give out 10 year sentences for those who drive under extreme drowsiness/sleep deprivation(something that is JUST AS dangerous), and maybe 3~5 years for anyone who eats a bagel or talks on the phone(anything that limits use of one hand) while they drive.. actually SCREW THAT.. lets just EXECUTE THEM!
You're missing the point. This has probably happened to a lot of people at some point true...but we're talking THREE DWIs. That's not a mistake, or a stupid moment. That's not even counting how many times you actually done it...this is the THREE TIMES you've been caught. You're awful protective of this woman with the 'how would you feel if it was your family members on the line'...what about if it was one of your family members struck and killed by the person who'd already racked up a few dwis and was still on the road?
yeah you have some good points... it is three DWIs that she got CAUGHT for.. i agree something must be done because we don't need these kind of drivers on the road.. STILL, i think 15 years is harsh man... if someone got seriously injured(not critically, but permanently) then 15 may be appropriate.. but in this case although it was her 3rd offense, only person she really screwed over was herself by totalling her car, oh yeah and the tree.. i just dont think 15 is appropriate for this particular incident.. its like those two austrailians in Bali who are on death row for smuggling several pounds of heroin.. DEATH PENALTY? i was stunned.
Uprising- Don' listen to the people that are getting on you for helping the lady out. Things are different after a very serious accident, even if she wasn't hurt. I have personally been in that situation three times. All of them were late at night out in the country while I was driving home from a gig. The worst one that I came across was on a back road between Cameron and College Station. The wreck had just occurred and there was just one girl. Her car was totalled and her knee was smashed and she had a broken collarbone. She was really drunk and I drove her all the way to College Station, which was about an hour away. It turned out that she got in a fight with her boyfriend and was driving to Houston. Who knows how she actually got in the wreck. I dropped her off at the hospital and told the ER nurse that she was in a wreck and they contacted the sheriff in the county of the accident that there was a wreck. I'm sure that she probably got in trouble. The funniest wreck that I came on was these two guys going to Brenham from College Station. They were drunk and probably high and had driven off the road and got stuck in the mud. They were okay and their car was okay, they just couldn't get back on the road. Since we were in the middle of nowhere, I tried to help them get back on the road, but no luck. A policeman came and they told him a story about how there was a third guy that was driving and had left the scene. After that, the cop pulled me to the side and asked if there was a third guy. I just told him that I had only seen two and that there probably wasn't a third. I'm sure those guys got into trouble. Another wreck that I came on was between Caldwell and College Station. I saw the guy drive off the road and into a ditch. I pulled back around and he had hit his face in the airbag and his glasses had cut his nose, but other than that he was okay. He said that he wasn't drunk but that he had made a long drive on little sleep and fell asleep at the wheel. I ended up driving him an extra 30 minutes out of my way to get him to his parents house. In all three situations, I've never felt any regret for helping these people out. As I saw it, they were already in enough trouble and I didn't feel like I needed to do anything to make it worse for them. One time, the guys that were in the wreck were either drunk or stoned and I tried to help them get their car out.
Uprising...thanks for the reply to my earlier post. sounds like you did the best that you could in that situation. i can't really put myself in that position unless i was actually there. that lady no doubt appreciated your concern for her health, and that was no doubt the most important thing at first. hopefully she did get reported by the other witnesses or something... ...sounds like you did the best you could. nothing more you can really do.
Exactly Firecat. Plus, I was almost certain in my mind there was no way she was going to get away with out getting into some kind of trouble. It was a bad accident and she was crying, and I was still shocked she was okay. We were kind of out in the middle of no where on our way back from Austin to College Station.
Those guys weren't wasted like the first lady that I described. They didn't have any obvious slurring or anything like that. I just assumed that they were partying and being stupid and that's how they got off the road. They were sober enough to talk to the cop in a coherent way. The way they were acting, I would have guessed that they probably had been smoking pot, but I'm no expert. If they were wasted, I would have offered to just drive them to town.
