Recent Incidents Spark Crackdown on Drinking and Driving

By Amber Stanford

July 5, 2012 – In the past week, there have been two wrong-way head-on collisions that resulted in five people losing their lives and alcohol use is suspected as the cause. Montgomery County responded with a surge of law enforcement over the holiday making many arrests for public intoxication and DWIs. They want to let the public know of their presence, and they are saying there will not be any tolerance of drinking and driving.

Andrea Schmauss, member of the Regional Advisory Board for Mothers Against Drunk Driving Southeast Texas Division and long-term employee of The Nations Law Firm, stated:  “Juries can identify with a drunk driver more readily than they can identify with a murderer or a rapist or a burglar.  So when they’re hearing (testimony), they’re thinking, ‘That could be me.’  That’s why we – as a society – still wink at drinking and driving, even though the result can be just as deadly as a maniac with a machine gun. To me, one person killed in an alcohol-related crash is way too many. It is the easiest crime to prevent: just don’t combine the drinking and the driving.”

Article no longer online: “No mercy in Montgomery County for intoxicated offenders” – http://www.myfoxhouston.com/story/18953172/2012/07/05/no-mercy-in-montgomery-county-for-intoxicated-offenders