Trying to keep from choking up, a member of my congregation, a soccer mom, announced Sunday what many of us didn’t know — and what some of us had just read — about the deaths of five Las Vegas residents whose minivan collided with a truck going the wrong way.
“It could have happened to any of us,” the speaker, Carol Linder, said, her voice breaking as she identified a young member of our congregation well-acquainted with one of the victims.
Well, it did happen to all of us.
True, we still have our lives and our families intact, but the devastation that occurred over the all-too-familiar refrain of a driver with too much booze in his system and a handful of prior Colorado DWI arrests, affects us all.
Millions of tears have been shed, condolences have been offered, awkward exchanges have occurred, and the endless refrain of “I don’t know what to say” has been evident. So momentous was the accident that coverage of it appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Minneapolis Star-Tribune and U.S.A. Today.
To their credit, many West Las Vegas High School students at an assembly Monday took a pledge never to drink and drive.
Nobody in this area has been immune. And like a pebble dropped into a lake, causing ever-expanding ripples, the story has gripped the entire state. A long-time friend, Vince, phoned me Wednesday with the question, “Will the media ever let up on this story? We’re feeling it even in Albuquerque.”
I hope not, at least not for as long as it takes to recover from this corporate anger and grief, as long as it takes to produce positive results.
The driver of the wrong-way vehicle, who died in an Albuquerque hospital a few hours after the deaths of five people, had a 0.32 blood-alcohol level, considered in this state to be four times what the law allows. He’d been arrested five times prior, in a state with much less tolerance for DWI than New Mexico. Certainly it’s not his — or anybody’s — Constitutional right to mow down law-abiding motorists after bracing himself with drinks.
Fellow passengers on the Sacramento-to-Albuquerque flight say they saw Dana Papst, the driver of the wrong-way pickup, down at least one miniature of Jack Daniels while in flight. According to them, Papst was quite intoxicated even before that time, which makes us wonder how he was ever allowed to board the plane in California.
Reports indicate that after landing in Albuquerque, Papst assured airport officials he had someone on the way to pick him up. Yeah, right.
Didn’t anyone else — such as a parking lot attendant or a convenience store clerk where Papst may have gone to re-stock — think of calling police?
When we implore our loved ones to “be careful out there” as they hit the road, what’s implied? How much more careful can people be when they obey the rules, buckle up, drive within the speed limit and refrain from drinking?
How many defensive maneuvers can the law-abiding employ when all seems right with the world, but suddenly they’re faced with a split second to react?
How much — or in this case, little — time was there for evasive action?
All of this leads to the now-emasculated refrain that “we have to do something.” Well, we’ve already done a lot: we’ve conjured up a lot of catchy slogans such as “you drink, you drive, you lose.” And the legislature enacted statutes to make such offenders sorry. Officials talk of stiffer penalties for those who dispense liquor to the already intoxicated.
Interlock devises become required equipment on vehicles of those convicted of DWI, preventing the car from starting until the driver sends a puff of non-alcoholic air into the device.
We need a system of reciprocity that informs our motor vehicle department of the disposition of prior DWI arrests and convictions in other states.
There’s perhaps little irony in the fact that Papst was able to secure a legal license in New Mexico. And let’s not forget the consistently high ranking of the Land of Enchantment when it comes to motor-vehicle deaths per capita.
And yet — and yet — we read almost daily about the endless dismissals and wrist slappings. The feeblest arguments by some who may think our laws are too strict, are —
• Why impound the vehicle? The vehicle didn’t crash into those people by itself. So why punish the vehicle?
• We shouldn’t deprive a person of his means of making a living. If he can’t drive to work, well, do you want him to end up on welfare?
• If you take away the offender’s means of transportation, it punishes family members who may also need the car.
Now while we can argue that having the family car impounded may indeed inconvenience innocent family members, the argument isn’t quite that simple.
Many repeat offenders somehow get access to vehicles anyway, drive on long-suspended licenses and do so with the tacit, or even overt, approval of family members. When we read of drivers who continue to drive even after a dozen DWI convictions, we realize something’s rotten in the state of New Mexico.
By impounding the offender’s car, the law is taking away at least one means of wreaking havoc, a tool that in seconds can transform from a means of transportation to a killing machine, as effective as an Uzi.
By now all variety of solutions have been posited, from longer periods of confinement, to electing judges who mete out stiffer penalties, to massive fines and impoundments, to removal of the many loopholes in the law, to holding liquor establishments responsible for any over-serving, to education of the public.
All of these have have already been discussed. Yet, the state bumbles along, with few of us able to fathom the immeasurable grief being suffered by the families and extended families of the victims. Let us hope that together we can find ways to prevent such senseless actions. But legislate though we might, we can’t breath one puff of air back in to the victims.
Though it’s a grossly unfair trade-off, perhaps the deaths of the Gonzales family — Paul Gonzales, Renee Collins-Gonzales, Alisha Garcia, Selena Gonzales and Jacqueline Gonzales, and serious injuries to the lone survivor, Arissa Garcia — will provide the impetus for New Mexico finally to get serious about our DWI problem.
What to do now? As for me, after I rid myself of this suddenly imposed anger and sorrow that have afflicted me for five days, I made a trip to the bank to donate what I could to the Gonzales Memorial Fund as a way of showing that some of us care. It made me feel somewhat better.
What about you?