Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 29, 1992 TAG: 9201290315
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN MARKEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
DEATH OF A DAUGHTER
DRUNK DRIVER KILLED MY DAUGHTER screams the bumper ticker on my wife's car. It is in white letters against a fire-red background.At about 9:30 one morning, my 23-year-old daughter Kathy was riding in a friend's Jeep when he lost control. The Jeep veered across the road, went along a barbed-wire fence, cut Kathy's seat beat and threw her out. She suffered massive internal injuries as well as a broken leg and numerous bruises and contusions. He suffered a blow to his head.
When they took him to the emergency room, the blood test showed that his blood-alcohol level was over the limit. He was legally drunk. At 9:30 in the morning.
Because of his driving drunk, my daughter lay on the side of the road. The rescue squad from Scruggs did all it could for her.
Because this person decided to drink that morning, he robbed me and my wife of the joy of seeing Kathy advance in her career. All the time and effort and money involved in her education, all the hard work and study in getting her degree at Emory and Henry was wiped away in that instant.
This drunken driver robbed her brothers of the joy of Kathy's love and laughter. One of our sons stopped going to church because he blames God for taking his sister. Because he stopped going to church, his wife and family are being deprived of fellowship with God.
We became involved in an organization called People Against Impaired Drivers, because one of its purposes was to get the drunken or drugged driver off the road. It monitors the courts and reports on the number of people caught driving drunk. It tells of lenient judges who are supposed to uphold the law and protect us from these repeat offenders. These lenient judges find the drunk guilty, then give him 30 days with 29 suspended, allowing the offender to serve only one day in jail - and on a weekend so he won't lose any time from work.
When are the judges going to realize that driving is a privilege, not a right - and that when these people drive drunk, they have turned a vehicle into a lethal weapon?
I have no quarrel with a person's desire or right to drink. People can drink all they want. But if a person is planning to drink, then he should arrange for a designated driver to drive him home.
Otherwise, that drunken driver can kill or maim another member of my family or yours. If that driver is caught driving drunk, then judges should impose the maximum sentence.
How many more Kathys have to die? How many more parents and siblings have to grieve before the judges wake up and hear their cries?
The bumper sticker says, DRUNK DRIVER KILLED MY DAUGHTER. Will you, fellow citizen, have to put one of these stickers on your car because a drunk took your child? Will you have to suffer the pain and the anguish of losing a loved one? Will your son or daughter have to grieve over the loss of a sibling?
Or will you add your voice to many others and tell the judges, "Enough is enough!"
John Markey, a Roanoke real-estate agent, is chairman of People Against Impaired Drivers.