In this country, we cherish our freedoms. We own guns. We travel without restriction anywhere in the U.S.A. We cannot be forced to work at any job (outside of criminal punishment). The list is wonderfully long. But our liberty is infringed all across the country by outrageous drunk driving laws.
According to the National Highway Safety Board, only about ten thousand people are killed by drunk drivers in any year. Tens of millions of us drive drunk every year, maybe hundreds of millions. (More testing of drivers would inform us better about that.)
Fewer than one person is killed for every ten thousand drunk drivers, maybe for every hundred thousand (see testing).
For this absolutely trivial rate, all drunk drivers run the risk of severe legal penalties. Compulsory mask wearing is widely attacked as a brutal assault on our freedom, and COVID-19 kills more than one in four thousand cases. Drunk driving fatality rates are far lower than this. This abridgment of our rights must stop.
Until the drunk driving fatality rate approaches the level of COVID-19 fatalities, there is no reason to have such penalties on drunk driving. Email your state legislators at once to change the drunk driving laws.
Bill Gillmore
Columbus
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