Here’s what we have on this relatively slow news day, the eve of the Iowa caucuses:
- USC makes history with win over Nebraska (thestate.com) — I told you it was a slow news day. And how is it 11 wins in a season when this is post-season? But congrats, by all means. Good for the village.
- Iowa, the Early Decider, Still Hasn’t (NYT) — I’ll be glad when this one is over, and we can start paying full attention to actual primaries.
- ‘Lonely’ Jon Huntsman Won’t Be Solo In N.H. Much Longer (NPR) — The reason we haven’t seen him around here is, he’s really taken up residence up there.
- Police say body believed to be suspected Rainier gunman found (AP) — I hadn’t been following this, what with the holidays and all, and now it’s over. Maybe. So maybe he wasn’t a real-life Rambo.
- Child killed in crash caused by drunk driver, police say (thestate.com) — There’s a local horror story. My God… Family’s driving to church on Sunday morning, and a drunk kills their 6-year-old girl? That’s what the cops are saying.
- Google revamps search home page (BBC) — A little news you can use. Often.
Related Posts
The tragedy of traffic fatalities has been a part of my career since 1987 and I regard this as the most under-reported type of news event in this country. With 30,000+ killed every year the carnage on our highways is truly a national tragedy of epic proportions. But at least the numbers are down from the 50k killed in the early 70s. Give credit to engineers, law enforcement, educators and EMS folks (the four Es), plus many others, for the decline. Sadly for many families, including that of the young girl killed going to church, there is much work left to be done.
On my browser, I have a search window. I never go to the Google page.
As far as the drunk driver goes, I think we need to change the cultural perspective on alcohol over-consumption, much as we changed view on cigarette smoking. We also need to get serious about drunk-driving enforcement and remove the weaselly alternative to charging per se DUI. For once, Juan would have a point about lawyers in the legislature.
I thought we already did that (“change the cultural perspective on alcohol over-consumption, much as we changed view on cigarette smoking”).
In fact, if I were to do a Top Five list of megatrend changes in public attitudes during the course of my career, attitudes toward drunken driving might top the list. Yes, the attitude toward smoking has changed dramatically as well, and along a similar arc. But I think the campaign led by MADD and others since the 1970s has been nearly as profound as what was wrought by the Temperance movement nearly a century earlier.
Before that, it was definitely the crime that was winked at. Not any more. By the mid-80s, it was taken very seriously indeed.
Maybe you’re too young to remember the change.
Of course, I grant you that South Carolina trails the nation on this, as on so many other measures. Our DUI law is weak and loophole-ridden, and we need to tighten it up. (And I think our friend Juan Caruso can tell us WHY — it’s largely because of the influence of trial lawyers on the General Assembly.) But I think that even here, public ATTITUDES have changed pretty dramatically from 40 years ago.
Don’t y’all think?
I think it needs to be like it is in Britain. If you drink, you do not drive. If you drive having drunk much of anything, they throw the book at you, end of story. In this state, a halfway decent lawyer (I can recommend one) can get you off with a much lesser charge and maybe a small fine for several instances of DUI. He has helped acquaintances….
It’s not, in many civilized circles around town, considered a bad thing at all to drive drunk, if, say, you aren’t going very far. Look at our Chief Justice!
I watch a lot of old moives on TMC. (Mostly because there are no commercials). The cultural changes between the 40s, 50s and early 60s are striking. The most obvious is the smoking thing. It seemed to be glamorous somehow to be puffing away on a cigarette during a social event. Even Santa Claus puffed away on a pipe. But a close second to smoking was the over-the-top drinking by the main characters. It was even regarded as humoruous to see someone stumbling around drunk as Uncle Billy did in It’s a Wonderful Life. Thankfully that attitude has translated into a big drop in drunk driving fatalities. Statistically speaking the demographic most affected is the group unaffected by the actual law, persons under age 18. It is simply a matter of culture that young people have a much more difficult time obtaining alcohol.
The public gets outraged over a tragedy like this – still drunk at 10:30 in the morning!
Driving home a little tipsy? I’d say no, the public doesn’t get upset about that, because too many of the people that make up the public do it themselves. But driving “tipsy” can kill someone too, and that someone usually isn’t the drunk driver.
you should just drink at home, apparently.
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/12/28/the-perils-of-drunk-walking/
Don’t remember where I recently read it, but there was a story about how Margaret Mitchell was killed by a drunk driver. At first, there was an uproar against him, but she somehow ended up being blamed for being a pedestrian in the wrong place at the wrong time. Things certainly have changed since then.
Although I don’t think diddly of the very political drug court in my area, maybe that’s a better way to deal with first offence DUI where there is no accident with injury. At least they get exposed to treatment, learn something about addiction and be monitored and tested for an extensive period. Maybe long enough for something to sink in.
Years ago, DAODAS county offices had an education program that people arrested for DUI went through. Is that still going on?
Will Spurrier be canonized immediately? St. Spurrier of the Stadia?
“St. Spurrier of the Stadia”
Karen, I love that!
@ martin–You are right about Margaret Mitchell. See also, the blame-the-victim scuttlebutt on Nancy Moore Thurmond’s death as a Five Points pedestrian.
Some of it may be our desire to distance ourselves from the fate of the victim.
I don’t know much about anything drug court except Richland County Juvenile Drug Court, which is most definitely not political and was shown in a PhD dissertation to be highly effective.