Commentary: No defense if others die

Here we go again.

A man is dead and two are critically injured after a driver police say was "highly intoxicated" slammed into a van on an Interstate 696 off-ramp in Royal Oak around 2 a.m. Monday.

Michigan State Police say the driver, a 24-year-old Madison Heights man in a pickup, rear-ended a van containing four people, causing it to roll over, and then the truck continued up the ramp, pushing the van.

One passenger, a man from Auburn Hills, was killed. Two had serious injuries and were in critical condition.

Statistics from Mothers Against Drunk Driving say about 3 in 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives.

Last year, those odds resulted in the death of 317 people in the state. They died horrible and gruesome deaths with no good-byes to those left behind.

If the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results, our failure to combat drunken driving is beyond insane.

Police say less than an hour before the crash, the same pickup bounced off the guard rails at a McDonald's drive-through on Van Dyke in Warren; the driver was allegedly so smashed he was no more capable of operating a vehicle than a kid ramming bumper cars at an amusement park.

"He was that drunk," a State Police officer said. "He just didn't realize what he was doing."

Which seems to beg the question: Why do we lessen the severity of a crime just because the weapon that was used was a vehicle instead of a gun?

How eerily reminiscent this Mickey D drive-through is to 26-year-old Michael Gagnon's drunken rampage through a Taco Bell in Toledo seven months ago. The Adrian resident then hopped on I-280 driving the wrong way -- northbound on southbound lanes -- to collide head-on with the Griffin family who'd been visiting relatives in Michigan.

The impact sheared off the passenger side doors of the Griffins' minivan, ejecting a 7-year-old, two 10-year-olds and the mom, 36-year-old Bethany Griffin. They landed on the freeway like rag dolls. A 2-month-old baby, found in her infant restraint seat, died later at the hospital.

How insane is it that an automatic weapon to end the lives of a mother and four young children would have been merciful by comparison.

How repugnant is it that the same excuse kids use "But I didn't mean to do it" bears any legal weight at all in drunken driving. Even a blackout drunk defense doesn't hold water in murder cases.

Just two months ago, Frances Patricia Dingle, 47, was so drunk, authorities said she plowed her vehicle into a car, killing four teenagers who were on their way to Pizza Hut.

In May 2005, Thomas Wellinger, 48, of Farmington Hills was so "severely intoxicated" (a blood-alcohol level of 0.43, way above the 0.08 legal limit) while driving his Yukon Denali, at 70 mph at the time of impact, he never applied his brakes before slamming Judith Weinstein's little Honda as she was taking her sons Alex, 12, and Sam, 9, to the dentist's office, killing all three of them.

MADD calls our current system a "catch-and-release program for first-time offenders." That's because MADD contends there is no such thing as a first-time offender: studies show those arrested for their first drunken driving charge have driven drunk 87 times before their first arrest.

Just imagine a "catch-and-release" program for first-time offenders who commit murder. Would they be any less culpable were they "just that drunk;" if they did not "realize what they were doing?"

Certainly our current system differentiates between a gun and a vehicle in the hands of a drunk.

But just as certain is that there is no difference are the loved ones of victims killed by a drunken driver. Either way, it's just as heinous.

mkeenan@detnews.com">mkeenan@detnews.com (313) 222-2515