A series of collisions on the Long Island Expressway last week ended when a police officer, stopped to help the last motorist whose car was struck by an allegedly drunk driver, was hit by yet another car. Nassau Police Officer Joseph Olivieri was killed.
While the driver of the car that struck and killed P.O. Olivieri was sober, the driver who caused the carnage, James Ryan, was arrested for drunk driving and the officer’s death. Via Newsday :
Now Olivieri is dead and Ryan has been charged with driving while intoxicated and vehicular manslaughter.
Ryan’s car didn’t hit the officer, but authorities say his behavior ultimately led to Oliveri’s death. The courts can sort out whether vehicular manslaughter is the right charge, but society still must struggle with how to stop this insanity.
There is no question that the needless death of a human being is a tragedy, whether cop or not. But rather than travel down the usual path of calling for people to exercise greater discretion, to make smarter choices and not drink and drive, this Newsday editorial goes in a very different direction.
We have the technology to install alcohol-interlock devices in every vehicle to prevent anyone who is drunk from driving. But if we believe putting alcohol-interlock devices in every car would go too far, then we must go further ourselves. Innocents killed by drunken driving have far more right to their lives than motorists have to drive without proving their sobriety.
Every car? Every person? Everyone? The rationale sounds vaguely familiar, that “innocents” (and indeed, no one can blame the victim of a drunk driver for being the victim) have more right to life than motorists have to drive without blowing into an alcohol-interlock device. But is the issue who has greater rights, or whether the right to arrive alive leads to the inexorable conclusion that everyone else’s rights must suffer?
On its surface, the editorial sets up a problematic argument, since no one takes the position that the lives of innocent travelers aren’t worthy of protection. Indeed, everyone on the road wants to make it home alive, and can well appreciate the notion of not being a drunk driver’s next victim.
But it doesn’t follow that the answer to one problem is to place the burden on everyone else, all the people who bear no responsibility for the conduct of those who are engaged in the wrong. By that line of reasoning, it would make as much sense to incarcerate us all for the drunk driving death, or perhaps do away with cars entirely. Both would deter any further drunk driving deaths, and as long as we’re divorcing responsibility from the burden, isn’t that all that matters?
The editorial reveals its motives when it asks, “society still must struggle with how to stop this insanity.” Every tragedy does not amount to “this insanity,” despite the current trend of reacting to each in melodramatic fashion and demanding a law to eliminate any possibility of harm to anyone in the future. How long before “Oliveri’s Law” becomes the battle cry?
This isn’t to diminish or trivialize the harm caused by drunk driving, though anyone who isn’t part of stopping the insanity is accused of being in favor of people being killed by drunks, or at least indifferent to the death of innocents on the road. This is the wedge that is used to shut down thoughtfulness in favor of a bludgeon to beat us all into submission. This is the drunk driving version of “do it for the children,” the excuse used regularly in an appeal to emotion without regard to reason.
As I’ve written numerous times before, the problem of drunk driving doesn’t manifest itself in a crash, or the death of a police officer trying to help others. The problem happens at the moment a person who has had too much to drink leaves the bar and sits down behind the wheel of a car. What happens after that is merely fortuitous, whether the person makes it home safely and sleeps it off, or ends up killing someone.
The numbers of accidents involving alcohol are badly skewed, calculated in ways that make it appear that they are happening constantly when it’s simply not true, The hysteria that follows obscures the problem rather than illuminates. The extraordinarily successful interest groups, led by MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving or whatever other perceived threat they want to eliminate, control the dialogue, from including alcohol in the bodies of the victims of crashes to the rumors of smells becoming proof of another drunkard. It’s hard to find a meaningful solution when every discussion begins with stopping the insanity.
Yet, drunk driving is a problem that compels a solution. Harm to innocents on the road is hardly a trivial concern, whether the raw numbers are massive or invented. Police Officer Joseph Olivieri should not have died on the highway in the early morning, and even though the car that struck him was driven by a sober driver, the incident itself might not have happened but for alcohol. It’s worthy of everyone’s concern.
The solution, however, is not to turn us into a society of presumptive drunkards, requiring proof of sobriety before our car will start. It won’t be effective, and will give rise to a wealth of unintended consequences, creating problems for people who are similarly innocent of any wrong, yet according to Newsday, held responsible because it’s a simple solution.
The answer isn’t to make all of society pay for the few, but to address the root of the problem without it being obscured by hysteria and appeals to emotion. Newsday’s editorial may make for good drama, but does little to add to clarity of thought. More importantly, the solution to individual impropriety isn’t to hold those who have done no wrong, and wouldn’t do wrong, captive.
Like Newsday, I too think we need to stop the insanity. The insanity in this case is Newsday’s solution to the problem.
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Scott – When I saw the topic I was hoping you were going to discuss the charging of the drunk driver with vehicular manslaughter because for the life of me I don’t see how he should be held responsible for Oliveri’s death. I understand Danger Invites Rescue, etc. but this charge seems a stretch. I imagine it must be something similar to the felony murder rule. If it was a bad charge I am sure you would have commented on it in the above post.
Don’t assume anything of the sort. It’s premature to argue that the charge is wrong only because there is essentially no information on the statutory basis for vehicular manslaughter, how they allege he “caused the death.” My suspicion is that Rice will prosecute via some attenuated “chaose theory” of causation, but I can wait until I know more before addressing it.
Of course, nobody really seems to want to talk about the dearth of mass transit and neighborhood bars that make drunk driving almost inevitable.
As someone who lost a dear friend to a drunk driver in 2010, I find your arguments against mandatory alcohol-interlock devices less than persuasive, but maybe because it’s personal for me?? I think not.
Driving is a privilege from what I’ve been told, not a fundamental right; constitutional or otherwise.
Remember airbags being mandated in cars way back when?? At first, many complained, but nowadays noone does. Why?? Because the cost of airbag technology has come way down; the technology has been pretty much perfected; airbags are totally unobtrusive and noninvasive to the driver and passengers; and most importantly – AIRBAGS HAVE PROVEN TO SAVE THOUSANDS OF LIVES A YEAR.
I don’t believe, even for a moment, that alcohol-interlock devices will not eventually attain the same attributes as airbags – including saving thousands of innocent and not-so innocent lives each year, as the people alcohol-interlock devices will save most often are the drunks who would have otherwise driven, crashed, and died.
I don’t agree with very many restrictions on personal freedoms, but this one, at least to me, has a lot of logic behind it when looked at from almost all perspectives – the cost-benefit to individuals, including the drunks themselves, and to society in general.
If you remember one of my previous comments, I assert that most of the time, most of the people are stupid and/or lazy. I believe that alcohol-interlock devices are a self-evident answer to the stupidest and laziest of all – the potential drunk driver . . . but then again, I could be wrong, Mr. Wong . . .
The relative value of safety versus freedom is always captive to one’s personal experiences. The close the harm is felt, the more reasonable the sacrifice. It’s perfectly understandable. I, too, have had friends who died in drunk driving accidents, but my blame is directed at the root of the problem rather than the penumbras.
But analogizing airbags to interlock devices probably isn’t solid. The differences on every level far exceed the similarities. Of course, tech could change that someday, but not as it currently exists. And I don’t recall anyone, ever, arguing against airbags as a loss of freedom. In fact, I don’t recall anyone complaining, except as to the harm they did to small children in the front seat, and they fixed that.
I get tired of this “driving is a privelege, not a right” business. That is false. The right to travel on roadways in ordinary transportation of the day is a firmly established legal precept. One such example (of many):
“The use of the highways for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common and fundamental Right of which the public and the individual cannot be rightfully deprived.”
Chicago Motor Coach vs. Chicago, 169 NE 22?1
Oh and by the way, if you go out and actually look, you’ll find that the evidence for the value of airbags isn’t as solid as you might think, and the cost of airbags definitely have NOT come down; rather they add thousands of dollars to the cost of a car, especially nowdays with multiple (often 8 or more) airbags in a vehicle. Go find the replacement prices for the airbags in your car. Just one passenger-side airbag replacement approaches $1000, and I speak from experience.
Yeah, the trope gets pulled out when it’s convenience, but isn’t true of so many legal axioms?
Did you consider asking a client for one? Just give him the type and five to ten minutes.
What many people consider common knowledge, or common sense, often turns out to be simply wrong when put under examination. Yet laws are passed and people are punished based on these falsities.
I contend that the root of the problem cannot ever be directly fixed and here’s why — when people consume alcohol, even smart people, they get dumber and dumber with each passing drink. Eventually, at some level of alcohol consumption, all of us, without exception, will get really, really stupid and exercise terrible, horrible judgment.
Do some of us stop drinking before we get to that point?? Yes, but not all of us do and that fact will never change, at least not until the last person on earth dies.
So if you deem drunk driving fatalities a problem that is worth addressing, which I do, then non-root detective (i.e., detect a drunk behind the wheel) and preventive (prevent detected drunk from driving) formulas are necessary to solve such an equation.
I see what you did there. The airbag analogy is not perfect; no analogy ever is because, by definition, an analogy compares two unlike things; that’s why they’re called analogies and not exactlies, I guess . . . But to me, the airbag analogy is worth considering in this discussion, for sure. Not precisely on point, but close enough for government work, in my book . . .
Maybe seatbelts are better analogized to interlock devices, as they are fundamentally more intrusive than airbags, restrict freedom of movement, but at the end of the day, are documented to save a lot of lives.
I might be missing something, but from a technical perspective, I can imagine a BAC-detecting steering wheel that measures BAC constantly in real-time through your skin. Bingo – non-intrusive, simple, and effective. Or some such nonsense . . .
“Woman raped because she can’t drive away from assailant in parking lot.”
“Child beaten by angry drunk dad because car won’t start.”
“Car shuts off at 55 mph because of alco-sensor malfunction, 73 people killed in pile up.”
“Heart attack kills man who tried to drive himself to hospital after a glass of chianti and fava beans.”
Stop the insanity.
Scrutiny makes people unhappy. It requires thinking and shakes their faith. It’s far easier to believe first and adapt reality to suit your belief. No thought required. Then laws are passed to please constituents, and everybody smiles and is happy again. Problem solved!!!
No thanks to H.L.Mencken : “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
Should Everybody Blow ?
Should everyone in America blow in a breath test machine before they start their car ? That is exactly what Newsday is proposing in an editorial in reaction to a police officer’s tragic death. Officer Joseph Oliveri was responding…
Technology can influence human behavior (imagine Manhattan without elevators) but it does not work very well with drunks.
There was a time when seat belt use was not only mandated, but cars wouldn’t start if the bests weren’t fastened. Once someone was hurt because of this, the system changed to the annoyance we have now: buzzers, bells and lights. Possibly something like this would be useful for alcohol: where a light of various colors would illuminate to indicate potential impairment.
I’ve used seatbelts since 1973, long before they were mandatory. I still find the alarms annoying.
Seat belts were for the safety and protection of the passenger using the belts, making the benefit direct to the user as well as society. Interlock isn’t. There is no valid analogy. And while lights or buzzers would annoy the heck out of every sober user, it wouldn’t do a thing to the drunk who would have no choice but to endure it.
Hear, hear! You took the words right out of my mouth.
This trope is particularly pernicious as it has been so deeply ingrained in the public’s mind.
And the lack of understanding of our constitution is a great enabler; i.e. “show me where that right is in the Bill of Rights” vs. the ninth amendment.