Strengthen DUI law

Reading the March 9 editorial about Senate Bill 5105’s proposal to make a fourth DUI a class C felony, it floors me that anyone (read Washington state’s House of Representatives) would have any opposition to this.

Frankly, in my mind, it doesn’t go far enough. People’s lives are destroyed by drunken driving accidents and the more that can be prevented, the better.

The fourth paragraph in this editorial mentions how this change in the law would increase the bi-annual cost of felony cases by $10 million. But has anyone tried to calculate the annual medical costs of drunken driving accidents paid by both the state and insurance? And also the government may continually pay for that accident through SSI and SSDI to the survivors who are too disabled to return to school or work.

Frankly as a taxpayer of this great state, $10 million is chump change in comparison to those possible costs. Why not a felony conviction after three DUIs? Thirteen to seventeen months in the clinker sounds humane compared to the death, disability and despair survivors suffer after a drunken driving accident.

Nicole Bower

Spokane