The Road To Grief Is Traveled In Haste
Michael R. Opland wasn’t Everyfool-In-A-Four-Wheeler last Wednesday when he ignored glare-ice conditions and began to pass five vehicles. He was worse.
He was a man with a history of lawlessness, including several traffic offenses: drunken driving, five speeding tickets, driving on the wrong side of the highway, operating an unsafe vehicle, possession of marijuana with intent to sell and vandalizing a railroad crossing gate. One previous victim, hospitalized in 1994 after Opland rammed the back of her car, suffers pain still.
Last week Opland was driving with a suspended license, the result of a drunken-driving conviction in Montana, when he began to pass on dark Idaho Highway 41, south of Rathdrum.
In defiance of the icy conditions, witnesses say, Opland was going 45 to 50 mph and passing a line of vehicles when he plowed headlong into a car driven by Darlene King, a popular Kootenai County employee, and killed her. Now, Opland faces a charge of vehicular manslaughter and a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
You leadfoots out there ought to pay close attention to this case. You don’t need Opland’s laundry list of traffic violations to kill on wintry roads. A little foolish bravado is all it takes.
On the night Opland killed King, Inland Northwest roads were ice rinks and unsafe at any speed. Careful drivers were inching along Interstate 90 at 30 to 35 mph, keeping their distance from vehicles ahead and hoping no one would hit their brakes. Also, they were hoping no damned fool in a hurry would lose control of a vehicle and hit them.
In November 1993, a blustery snowstorm and a speeding car triggered a chain reaction on slippery Interstate 90 in Spokane that ultimately involved 95 cars in four separate accidents. The crashes caused an estimated $500,000 in damage and sent 45 people to area hospitals. Fortunately, no one was killed.
Darlene King, 39 and recently a grandmother for the first time, managed the county commissioners’ office. She left work early Wednesday to avoid traffic on the icy two-lane road to Rathdrum. She couldn’t avoid Opland.
Opland ought to spend the rest of his life thinking about King and his poor judgment.
And you should consider Opland next time you’re tempted to tail-gate, speed or chance passing on hazardous winter roads.
There but for the grace of God go you.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board