Road Risks: Booze, Boorishness
Too much booze, too little courtesy. Those, say two “Bagpipes” readers, may be a couple of reasons why highway deaths are on the rise across the nation.
“My feeling,” says Gerald Ray of Spokane, “is it’s attributable to the fact alcohol is so available to the driver. All of these little service stations and quick-stops have a license that supposedly is for consumption at home.
“If it’s for consumption at home, why do they sell it in single bottles, six-packs? Some of the places even have single bottles on ice. Now you tell me that those single bottles or six-packs are for home consumption.”
Paul Tanners, also of Spokane, blames increased highway risk on “basically more aggressive, less considerate and lazier driving on the part of a lot of drivers. It’s not just running red lights any longer. It’s also to the point of eliminating the necessities - not the niceties, the necessities - of driving, such as signaling. It used to be that right turns were barely signaled; now, even left turns are not signaled. And when a signal is given, it’s usually at the very last moment, and the driver behind gets the first inclination that there’s really something going on with the driver in front of him when the brake lights go on. Then, at the very last second, if we’re lucky, the left or the right signal goes on. That’s my beef.”
Courting trouble
Arthur Bradley of Nine Mile Falls says he was sued once “for stealing my own truck.” The case involved a dispute over work done for Bradley in exchange for the truck in question - a dispute Bradley and his attorney thought should have been disposed of quickly. But “after eight months and many trips to court, I gave the other party my truck and said I was through fighting as my attorney fees were more than the truck was worth and the case was no closer to being settled than it was the first day in court.
“It’s no wonder the courts are jammed,” Bradley said. “If you leave everything half-done, pretty soon you’re snowed under.”Dee Taylor of Spokane has quarrels with the pace of justice and the lack of information about what’s going on. The medical malpractice suit she filed took six years to get to trial. Why? “I have no idea.”
As far as the way criminal cases are handled, L.F. Hildebrand of Spokane shared a common complaint: “Current laws protecting rights of criminals take many more rights from victims and taxpayers than given the criminals, who don’t deserve nor have they earned rights.”
For drug dealers, Hildebrand suggests straightforward punishment that would be less costly and more effective than sending them to jail.
“First-offense punishment: Tattoo right ear lobe, plus two to five unbearable Singapore canes, followed by instructions that the second-offense punishment to be much of the same, with the left ear lobe also to be tattooed for drug identification, and that the third-offense punishment is the end - a highly publicized public execution.”
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