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Early this morning ~1:30am, three people lost their lives in Illinois outside of St Louis, near Edwardsville. A driver going wrong direction on slammed head-first into their vehicle - as they were traveling due to the lady's granma's funeral.
Sincere condolences to the family and friends of those that perished. I really am trying to understand how our legal & checks-balances system allowed this person to be driving. All of these offenses [1987-2001], and still able to get behind the wheel. I hate to pass judgment w/o knowing all of the pertinent facts, but right now IMHO hades will be too good for him. Yea, I know this is not an isolated incident - which makes it even harder to accept; what can be done?
02/05/2009 - Wrong-way driver in Illinois kills two adults, one child - STLtoday.com (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/commutingtraffic/story/7383E16B979F9B50862575540042CFCD?OpenDocument#tp_n ewCommentAnchor - broken link)
I don't know, but it's always sad when this kind of thing happens. We have a lot of elderly people in my area who mistakenly enter the freeway on the wrong side despite the huge DO NOT ENTER signs and take people out. My own brother was killed in a head-on collision 8 years ago when someone was passing people over double yellow lines and on a curve. Since this happened in my own family, I am always looking and hopefully prepared.
I have never understood the free pass(es) given to DUI drivers, especially those involved in collisions. What I find even infuriating is, even when they KILL innocents, they often walk away. Disgusting.
My heart goes out to that family, and particularly to the little girl.
As a side note, I've often wondered why we don't install wrong-way spike strips on highway exit ramps. As long as you're going in the proper direction (exiting), no harm. However, drive over them in the wrong direction and BAM flat tires.
It may cause inconvenience (and, of course, it would be expensive) but it could save lives.
Location: Moved to town. Miss 'my' woods and critters.
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After reading the entire article, I am disgusted with a judicial system that would have given this monster a license even after the 1st offense. His record just shows that something like this horrible tragedy would occur sooner or later.
Can only hope and pray that the young girl will physically recover soon and then receives the help she will need for many years to heal emotionally, if possible.
I am not normally a defender of our legal system but in this case he didn't have a license. Unfortunately you don't need a license to drive. You need one to drive legally. That's where the legal system fails. The only way to keep this from happening again is jail time for offenders.
Latest news on this scum... 02/06/2009 - Driver in crash near Edwardsville had long record of drunken driving - STLtoday.com (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/laworder/story/E432DDBBEB914BD186257555001475FA?OpenDocument - broken link)
It will be a day not too soon to have improved means to track and monitor the kinds of offenses such a person as this has - make it easier for the varied states and jurisdictions to follow and then hopefully prosecute these trashes to full extent of the law. I can understand certain traffic offenses being minimized, but such as what he had, these number of times - where is the thinking of the courts? Why do innocents die, and then something is done? Maybe this can be a wake-up call to others,,, don't drink/drive, be extremely careful of idiots on the road, improve/strengthen prosecution and court and DMV systems.
I am not normally a defender of our legal system but in this case he didn't have a license. Unfortunately you don't need a license to drive. You need one to drive legally. That's where the legal system fails. The only way to keep this from happening again is jail time for offenders.
Sadly not even going to jail stops repeated offenders from getting behind a wheel to drive again. I think they should have to wear lifetime loud alarm that goes off when they are behind a wheel of a running vehicle. The only way to shut it off would be by a cop coming to use a key on it.
I am not normally a defender of our legal system but in this case he didn't have a license. Unfortunately you don't need a license to drive. You need one to drive legally. That's where the legal system fails. The only way to keep this from happening again is jail time for offenders.
This is digusting, I don't know how else you can stop somebody, who's had several DUI convictions from driving, other than put him away for good, or at least confiscate his vehicle.
It's unfortunate that sometimes it takes a terrible tragedy like this to put this guy away for good, and I hope no public defender tries to keep him out of prison.
One other thing that always makes me wonder, drunk drivers often kill innocent people, but they always walk away unharmed, or with minor injuries.
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