Effective commentary complaining about undue leniency for drunk drivers

This column in the Baltimore Sun, which is headlined "Not just 'liberals' to blame for drunk-driving tragedies," echoes the complains I have long had about our collective failure to be more effective in sentencing drunk drivers.  Here are snippets:

Liberal, conservative, moderate — judge, lawyer, defendant or next of kin, or state legislator — it doesn't matter.  When it comes to drunken driving in Maryland, and most of this country, we are almost all enablers.

Here's a number to consider: 25,120. That's the number of Marylanders who had three or more convictions for driving while intoxicated as of April 2008.  Mothers Against Drunk Driving came up with that figure, based on statistics from 20 states and the District of Columbia compiled last year by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration....  Assuming most of them still drive — and that's a fairly safe assumption in this state, and one that MADD makes — that's a huge number of potential dangerous encounters for any of the rest of us who drive....

From what I've seen over the years — following drunk-driving and auto manslaughter cases in my own newspaper, and actually sitting in city and suburban courtrooms as defendants appear before judges — coddling of drunken drivers cuts across society.  It has not been liberalism at work in the making of laws and the setting of sentencing guidelines.  If anything, a libertarian philosophy has defied efforts to restrict those who drink and drive, from hard-core punishment (heavy fines and long jail sentences) to outright prohibitions on future driving....

We don't take the zero-tolerance approach.  You can get caught drinking while driving in Maryland and still drive a motor vehicle — if not immediately during a license suspension, then certainly in the near future.  Driving a motor vehicle is a privilege, but many view it as a right, or a right with a few inconvenient conditions once in a while.

Even the measure that many agree would be effective — requiring use of an ignition interlock device, a dashboard Breathalyzer that keeps a car from starting if the driver isn't sober — presumes that someone established as a danger will be allowed to drive again.  That's the reality, and I accept it. We don't have one-time loser laws for drunken drivers and probably never will.

So requiring the device would seem to make sense.  Eleven states made interlocks mandatory. Virginia, supposedly far more conservative than Maryland, mandated the devices for people who have had two convictions.... In Annapolis last winter, a similar requirement passed a Senate convinced of its potential effectiveness. But the measure never got out of a House of Delegates committee chaired by Joe Vallario, who in his other life is (can you guess?) a defense attorney.

Some related posts on sentencing drunk drivers:

• New York Times editorial calls for ignition locks for all drunk drivers
• State judge makes pitch for ignition locks for drunk drivers
• "Car breath tests for 1st-time DUI offenders?"
• Shouldn't we be much, much tougher with drunk drivers?
• Tougher (but still not tough enough?) on DUI
• Getting tougher on drunk driving
• Why do we worry so much more about sex offenders than drunk drivers?
• Technology versus toughness to combat drunk driving
• Undue leniency for drunk drivers?
• More discussion of leniency for drunk drivers
• Is capital punishment for drunk driving morally required?
• More examples of undue leniency shown to repeat drunk drivers
• "Some Coloradans drive until they kill"