I am so pissed off I want to throw something! And I think the rest of you would want to also.

A guy busted SIX TIMES for drunk driving, gets only a year and a half in jail.

The day he gets out, he'll go right back to drunk driving. :argh:

Elkhart Lake man sentenced for sixth OWI
September 8, 2008

A 48-year-old Elkhart Lake man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for sixth-offense drunken driving, according to court records released today.

Michael L. Hengst, of N8155 Highway P, was sentenced Friday by Judge James Bolgert to the prison term and 30 months extended supervision on a count of felony operating while intoxicated.

Hengst had a blood-alcohol level of 0.14, nearly twice the legal level of intoxication, when he was pulled over on county Highway V near Waldo, according to a criminal complaint. A Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department deputy pulled over Hengst’s pickup truck about 3:15 p.m. July 1 after watching him cross the centerline several times.

Hengst was given a three-year license revocation, fined $1,256 and given credit for 68 days already spent behind bars.

http://www.sheboyganpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080908/SHE0101/80908065/1973

How else do you get a drunken asshole like this off the road?

Make it discreet, so it doesn't embarrass him or her, but it will make the driver use taxis.

All they have to do is get a no-drunk friend to blow into it.

A friend of mine asked me to do it, and I refused and walked away.

Which doesnt work

I hitched a ride with two guys from a bar once and the whole time they were worried about getting busted. I shoulda put my foot down or walked the 11 miles home, but I really didn't feel like walking and also since I was carrying a bow I didn't want some drunk dude messing with my bow in the back seat. It was odd that they wouldn't jump at a chance to let somebody else drive.

"clean breathe in a can" devices or something to that effect.
or- they could just pay some hooker or someone else 10 bucks for a different kind of 'blow job'.

the only way to stop the hard-core drinking drivers is to lock them up.

I am going to tell you right fucking now, you ain't any a better than those bastards driving around all drunky like. This country is in shambles.. It's no wonder why people are fucked up constantly.

Get them off the road? How about helping a shitty society get fixed?

Locking up everyone is no cure

this drunk?

It would have stopped him

He has a problem and its not a moral or ethical one

Driving drunk or not is a matter of choice -- choosing to risk many lives, including the driver's own.
That is entirely different from being chemically dependent.

After a third offense, life with parole contingent on getting treatment.

Fourth and above, life, NO parole.

I had relatives killed and injured by multiple drunk drivers, and the one who injured my immediate family members was a lawyer who tried every legal trick in the book.

since he didn't get the message the first five times, and jail and fines have not made an impression on him.

what is so hard about that? problem solved!

of course, this a-hole sounds like he'd drive anyway, to try to "get away with it"--in which case, oh, say, ten or fifteen years in the slammer ought to keep him out of the drivers seat.

i've known several people who have gotten dui's- none of them had their life "destroyed"...
however- i've also known a couple people whose lives were impacted MUCH MORE harshly by being VICTIMIZED by drunk drivers- when your spouse or child is killed by one, it DOES 'destroy' your life.

harsh crimes require harsh actions.

he'll eventually get out and drive drunk again.

A real long sentence and he could be in his 80s and drunk the first time he drives in many years.

So, what's the solution?

taking out their eyes would be a better solution.

that'd solve the recidivism problem with drunk drivers.

One was my stepfather who was killed by an off-duty policeman. He got no punishment. The other was my daughter's husband who was hit and dragged by a drunk. He left the scene of the accident, but came back and a witness identified him. He only got a year in jail within a work release program. These people should be jailed for life.

We have drunks in NM who are getting busted well into the double digits.

They've finally started to impound the cars and sell them at auction. It's the only thing that's put any sort of a dent in it.

Only taking the car and hitting them square in the wallet will slow these clowns down.

I don't drink so I haven't bothered to keep up with it, except that the state Supreme Court ruled the law constitutional and that I've noticed the auctions when they've happened.

The first DUI requires driving school to reinstate the license, a good deal in a college town. After that, they get progressively tougher. Alas, the sentences haven't been long enough to keep some of the more spectacular drunks off the road.

is on the way:

http://www.telesensors.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=70

confiscated for restitution to any victims. Throwing a drunk's ass in jail for having an untreated illness though isn't taking care of the problem. He should be sentenced to rehab instead. If our country had an efficient and affordable mass transit system, alcoholics wouldn't have to drive to drink and return home. If we had access to universal health care, they could seek help before their illness becomes a hazard and social problem.

private prison corporations.

Because that is what drunk driving is.

It's careless, stupid, immature, sometimes a symptom of alcoholism coupled with the fact people don't use horses for transportation anymore, but it's not murder.

and i think that most of society would agree to it.

certainly would as profit is their supreme concern.

I'm not convinced private insurance corporations actually give a damn about the people's health or they wouldn't overrule doctors making medical decisions for the sake of profit.

I have no doubt should the for profit prison corporations have their way, virtually everything would be against the law.

and look how much they've been willing to put up with(the 'patriot' act) in order to give themselves the appearance of security from THAT perceived threat. and the alcoholic beverage lobby(big booze) does a good job of keeping people separated from information on the true nature of the threat.

The dangers of drunk driving message is hammered home like nothing else on all forms of mass communication. There is *virtually no alcoholic beverage advertising to the contrary, disputing this message.

* I only said virtually because there may be something out there, I'm missing.

suffered at the hands of terrorism is as comparing apples to sand grains.

I've read the estimated number of terrorists, that being Al Qaueda runs from thirty to eighty thousand.

The total number of Americans actually on the front line against them in Afghanistan run about thirty six thousand, I don't count the War in Iraq as a war against terrorism but for the sake of argument of counting troops exposed to direct danger, I will in this case, that's about one hundred forty six thousand. Combine those numbers and you can even round it up to two hundred thousand if you like.

You can even quadruple those numbers of Americans actually on the front line against terrorism every day and that comes to eight hundred thousand Americans facing direct danger.

Compare that to the numbers of Americans facing the war against traffic every day, total population of three hundred million subtract about fifty million school age kids, another fifty to seventy five million elderly, disabled and mass transit users and that leaves you with one hundred and seventy five million to two hundred million Americans on the front lines facing the war against traffic everyday.

If every American goes to one destination and straight home that doubles the number from three hundred and fifty million to four hundred million Americans on the front line facing immediate threat from traffic accidents. If they go to another single destination, a friend's home, the store, church, a bar, a movie, the lake, that triples the number and so on. This of course doesn't count people who drive all day for a living, or people making many trips, taxi drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers, Realtors, chauffeurs, couriers, etc.

The upshot is comparing the total number of deaths from any traffic accident whether under the influence or not to terrorism is totally misleading as you're pullng from vastly different pools.

I'm sorry but words have meanings. People who drive while intoxicated are not "attempting murder". Every single one of them I have met has simply deluded themselves into thinking that what they are doing is not dangerous. Of course, being intoxicated makes that little self-deception a lot easier to indulge in. Is that wrong? You bet. Does it need to be addressed? Of course.

What we need are education programs, stricter non-prison penalties, and more creative methods of preventing such people from driving. The last thing in the world this country needs is to throw more people into prison.

the rest of us are getting pretty fed up with having to deal with the sociopathic scumbags.

speed kills after all, or people that run stop signs, people talking on their cell phones while driving and become distracted?

if they have 'had a drink or two' and it puts them over the legal limit- they shouldn't be driving in the first place.
the other activities you mention aren't the subject of this thread, and therefore fall into the category of red herrings that need not be addressed here, -but you're free to start a thread on the subject if you like.

The thread is referring to a repeat traffic offender that only got a year and a half in prison, the offense just happened to be drinking and driving, but the other issues certainly cause many deaths as well. If you presume to put people with drinking and driving problems in prison, you're only a step away from going after the others in turn.

This is the slow creep thinking of a draconian society that thinks prison is the cure-all to societies ills eventually leading to a total police state.

This is the kind of thinking that would spawn a prison industry which profits by literally turning the American People in to American Prisoners.

No doubt these prisoners would in turn loose their voting rights along with many other innocent people caught up in the purge and the police state perpetuates it self by destroying the people's freedom and the foundation of democracy.

More than a million of them non-violent offenders.

About a half million non-violent drug offenders.

Yes, we do want to throw "everyone" in prison.

Simply calling for imprisonment betrays a lack of imagination. I like some of the other ideas on this thread, such as ignition locks, selling off offenders' cars, etc. Gouging out their eyes or cutting off their hands? The Saudis got nothing on us, I guess.

alternatives to our current system?

it's an easy thing to call for 'alternatives', and a completely different thing to actually suggest some that could be effective.

whose gonna pay for a monorail?...:shrug:

the cities already have that covered- i used the el to get home many many drunk nights in chicago.

treatment- already available and usually a requirement for many/most repeat d.u.i offenders.

0 for 2...wanna try for strike 3?

even marginally, useful mass transit systems. Try taking a bus or train home at 3AM in Dallas or Phoenix or LA or any of the hundreds of cities that don't have what you have in Chicago.

I believe the OP was a rant about how the current system is not working, so is your position is that we just need much more of that which doesn't work?

the first line of the op is this:

A guy busted SIX TIMES for drunk driving, gets only a year and a half in jail.

that shouldn't happen. by the third strike, it's obvious the guy is a lost cause, and should be doing some SERIOUS time. by the time he was able to get out of jail after 6 offenses, he should be TOO OLD to drive, imho.(btw- i'm not a fan of '3-strikes' laws- but if the strikes are all for the same felony offense on separate occasions i could probably live with it).
wanna bet that part of the reason that he got so little jail time overall was partly because he agreed to "treatment"...? expanding 'treatment' WOULD be 'more of the same'.

btw- i've taken the bus in la- it was very convenient, and A LOT cheaper than chicago. as for dallas/phoenix- you get what you pay for, and i'm betting that their property/income taxes are a lot lower than we have in illinois.
but once you get outside chicago, there isn't much there for mass transit, either.

so-what kind of service would you envision being provided for the many many bars that are located in rural/un-incorporated areas? there's a reason there's no workable mass transit in those areas- it's TOO EXPENSIVE for the amount of use it would get. if it were a viable alternative, it would already be there.

I guess that's why it takes over 4 hours to get from LBC to Orange.:rofl:

If, as you say, mass transit is unworkable, we could subsidize taxi service to ensure that there is no need to drive after drinking, that is certainly workable but smacks of "the most evil socialism". I guess the bottom line to this issue is that solutions have been found in other places, yet we seem to remain absolutely fixated on "extracting a pound of flesh", no matter how many time we see that it does not work (kind of like prohibition, yes?).

nobody is talking about making booze illegal- just cracking down HARD on those who choose to drink and drive. the problem today is that those who drive drunk don't serve ENOUGH time. THAT needs to change DRASTICALLY.

as for subsidizing taxi's for late-night drunks- why don't you take a poll of property-owners, and see how many would agree to raising property taxes to pay for cab-rides home for heavy drinkers...i doubt you'll get many takers.
if ANYBODY should subsidize such a taxi service- it should be the drinkers themselves- an additional tax on alcoholic beverages to pay for it would be the ONLY acceptable method of paying for it. wanna bet what the alcohol lobby would think of that?

as far as the bus service- i can only judge it based on my experiences, which were all very good, and yes- conveinent. i have no idea what lbc or orange are or how far apart they are so the 4 hour thing is meaningless- BUT- if it is that bad, it just goes to show how unworkable your idea for more mass transit would be- if a large city like los angeles can't provide satisfactory service, what chance do the many small towns and widespread rural areas have in fielding an effective service...:shrug:

It was double what it is today 30 years ago. .08 is ridiculous, IMO. 2 beers and you may blow over it. I can guarantee that I am not impaired to drive after 2 beers. ok, let the inevitable flaming of me commence.

He'll get the point.

No need to throw him in jail.

next time this guy drives drunk, doesn't it?