A Rant.
There was a road rage incident in the Big City not too many days ago. An article about the incident can be found at $200,000 bail set in hit-and-run. Another story is at Road-rage suspect hit with DUI These newspapers only make the last seven days of news items available, so the articles may not be available when you read this entry.
The second article says an awful lot about the driver of the vehicle. It starts with a description of a young boy swearing he’ll never drink because his father drank, runs through the usual liturgy of childhood traumas such as divorce and having to go to work at an early age. It ends with the 25 year-old man that the little boy grew up to be getting involved in a hit and run while drunk and high on cocaine, panicking and running over the other driver, and then speeding away only to be caught by police after a chase on a congested highway just outside the city. It turns out this guy has previous DUI charges. He was also once charged with endangering another human being.
The article says little about the man who was killed when his chest and head were crushed except that he was a grandfather and a carpenter. There was more to say. The man was also active in a local reach-out program to assist people on drugs and alcohol. He was also a liver transplant recipient. He’d gotten his transplant several years ago, and was doing well, and leading a productive and useful life.
I never met this man, but I do know friends of his. When things were lowest for me this summer, when it seemed like I was taking forever to heal and when the medications I was on had reduced me to little more than babbling Jell-O, I was told about this man, and how sick he’d been before, and how well he was doing now. His friends obviously thought the world of him, and hearing about him reassured me that my life would get back together as well.
I tend to be a pacifist. I prefer negotiation to fighting, I prefer rehabilitation to the death penalty, I try to see things from the other guy’s point of view. And yet my feeling is that the only justice that can be served here is if Mr. Road Rage’s heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas, small intestine, skin, marrow, and any other useable part of him are donated to people who will otherwise die waiting for their chance to live. He’s had his shot with his organs and has proved unworthy.
I’ll probably regret writing this tomorrow, but right now I’m angry.
So much stupidity and so much waste. Things like this are just sick and sad
As you should be.
I am weary to death of people having compassion for the perpetraters of crimes and ignoring the victims and their devestated families.
It is the mark of a society in decline.
Y.
You get that anger out! Grr!
I don’t understand how people can just run someone over and leave. O.k, he was drunk but still. Only a heartless person wouldn’t stop.
i caught the story on the news. who could blame anyone for being angry or upset about a person losing his life over road rage or that the criminal had previous dui charges? or that he was under the influence as it happened? the laws are getting tougher (PA might now be on its way to having the toughest laws in the country). too bad it’s always at the expense of victims. we need some serious progress when it comes to the combo of roadrage, alcohol and driving.
How upsetting. I think you have every right to feel angry right now about this.
…let’s just both start delivering newspapers for a living.
(((Sal)))
Tell it like it is!
Yea, I get to treat these idiots. What a terrible story.
((HUGS))
Sue
His liver is probably shot.
Yetzirah imagines Salamander with dribbling Pepsi fizz emerging from said Salamander’s nasal orifices. Hoik hoik ! My plan worked !!!
Write on!
Y.
I’m so sorry. 🙁 A friend of mine, an EMT who is otherwise rather peaceful, thinks drunk drivers should be executed on the spot. She’s had to deal too often with the aftermath of their choices.
This doesn’t sound like road rage to me as much as cowardice–this man who thought he had a greater right to escape trouble for drunk driving than another man had a right to live.
Sometimes I think my EMT friend has a point.
I don’t think there can possibly be a fitting punishment for the perpetrator of that crime. He killed someone and in the process devestated family, friends, and the community. What can you possibly do to someone like that as punishment? I could think of a few creative things to try to get him to understand exactly what he did and the suffering he caused but none could ever equal his crime.
What a shame that more emphysis wasn’t put on the victim. Maybe if the victims were more visible, people would think before getting behind the wheel after drinking but I doubt it. *sigh*
Yeah, you have every right to vent, and I can’t see why you would ever regret it. This is really sad. More could be said about the victim in a follow-up article…your entry above for instance in a newspaper’s ‘Letters To The Editor’, or a poignant tale in a weekly magazine.
I wish the public were exposed to more of the victim’s viewpoints – and the losses to the community.
((((Hugs)))) from Jenny