SAME THING, DIFFERENT DAY

Sir,

Every Monday your publication has two or three pages of stories, incidents and characters from the past weekend and the world of ‘driving under the influence’.

The premise is always the same; excuses, explanations and fairy tales from those appearing in front of magistrates as to why they have digressed together with requests for leniency.
Then we get magistrates with their supposedly humorous comments which are usually on the same level as those whimpering their excuses for breaking the law.

One magistrate who loves to pass comments asks; “Just last week electricity went up and people still have money to drink alcohol, get arrested and pay high fines?”

Is it not as plain as the nose on your face that if the offender has the option of spending 34 months in jail or paying a fine of E3 000, which option will be taken?

Thirty four months without a pay packet or a fine which may not even represent a week’s pay? Is any fine under E10 000 really going to be difficult to sort out for someone found guilty of driving under the influence?

Nothing has improved or will as long as the courts farm out petty fines and no serious punishment to those who drink and drive. Drink-driving is not a crime offenders have any fear of committing because the fines are easily managed and nobody has any fear of losing their licence or ending up with a custodial sentence.

Why don’t the courts give out community service punishments, have the offenders working at the weekends instead of getting plastered?
 In the weekend papers, members of the families whose relatives (RIP) were wiped out by the drunken driver from the USDF were also asking why drink-driving fines were so low.

Why are offenders’ driver’s licences not taken by the courts and bans issued? Why is nobody given a custodial sentence? Surely if some proper punishment was meted out in court, it would discourage offenders from re-offending and make people to think twice about drinking and driving.

People who drink and drive cause chaos on the roads and in the worst cases, destruction, death and pain to those who suffer because of their actions.

You will not find a First World country which has the same slack laws regarding ‘driving under the influence’ as we have here; so if 2022 is to become a reality, the courts in the country need to start issuing punishments befitting this most heinous of crimes.

DUI.1stWorld@2022.com

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