I have blogged about this before in previous years, but a new study just released by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicates that, while traffic fatalities are down around the country, the state of Kansas saw a huge jump in alcohol-related traffic fatalities in 2008. In fact, there was a 36% increase, the second highest in the nation. The numbers rose in 2007, as well. In other words, despite the much harser treatment of citizens accused of DUI in Kansas in the past couple of years, the problem is getting worse, not better. That is because suspending people’s driver’s licenses for longer and putting them in jail for longer is not really a solution. It may make a politician look “tough on crime”, it may appease special interest groups like MADD, and it may make some people feel better, but it does not truly affect the number of people who end up in a traffic accident after consuming alcohol which is, after all, what the laws are meant to prevent.
From a previous blog post:
The drunk driving problem cannot be solved by harsher punishment. It is a social problem and chemical dependency problem. All of the jailings and all of the license suspending are apparently not making much of a difference. The Kansas DUI law needs another overhauling, but not to make the law stricter and harsher on people. We need sentencing laws that will actually work and make a difference in our society. As I have said before, until attitudes change in the community, and there are effective treatment and education programs, and until there is infrastructure like public transportation available, all of the harshest laws possible will not solve this issue. The number of DUI arrests and deaths continues to stay the same or go up. One definition of insanity is continuing to repeat the same behavior over and over expecting a different result. The DUI laws in Kansas are apparently less than sane. We need to rethink the approach.