Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 9, 1993 TAG: 9306090125
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Teachers are more inclined to stretch recess by a few minutes. Lunchtime Popsicles have to be eaten quickly, or they melt.
This, now, is the time of year it's great to be a third-grader, riding the giddy crest of anticipation of another summer.
Dustin Washburn, once a third-grader, will know none of it.
He was buried Monday, fatally injured last week in a car wreck on Peters Creek Road.
Dustin was near his home, riding in a car his mom was driving. His seat belt was fastened. Robin Washburn pulled onto Peters Creek Road and shortly after, their car was smashed from behind.
The impact, witnesses said, lifted the Washburn car and dropped it on its front end, out in front of the school where Dustin was to be having the best days of his life.
He died about five hours after the accident.
John Walton Stover, 20, who was driving the car that crashed into the Washburns', faces an involuntary manslaughter charge.
If Stover is convicted, will justice be served?
Not entirely. Because John Walton Stover had no business driving on Peters Creek Road that Thursday night, had no business being anywhere near the car in which Dustin was riding.
Stover was caught driving drunk in October, pulled over by a county cop and tried in a county court.
His license was suspended, though he was permitted to drive to and from his home, his job in Salem, his classes at Virginia Western Community College or required alcohol-rehabilitation classes.
He was doing none of the above at the time of the accident. He was partying.
John Walton Stover was told not to drive as punishment for imperiling all of us on the road.
He chose to ignore that punishment.
Stanley W. Brooks chose to ignore his punishment - a driver's license suspended for a decade - last month and he drove. He killed himself, his passenger and Geoffrey Pelton, whose fatal error was to be driving in an oncoming lane.
How much of our blood will trickle into the roadside storm drains before we figure out how to rein the Stanley Brooks and the John Walton Stovers among us?
We respect their rights. We assume them innocent until proven guilty, grant them due process and try them before juries of their peers. We sentence them for our own protection, and theirs.
We punish them time and again. But if you're ignoring a one-year suspension, why will you obey a 10-year suspension? Time means nothing.
They defy us, and Dustin is dead. Geoffrey Pelton is dead. Who's next?
What shall we do to stop them?
Call me. I want to hear your ideas.
How can we keep motorists whose licenses have been suspended off the roads? Call me at 981-3119 to record your proposal.
by CNB