Just Do It: List Them

Police and municipal authorities are increasingly frustrated at the lack of public buy-in to the obvious reality that drinking and driving are a potentially lethal mix. There have been any number of drunk-driving charges brought against individuals who felt that they were in complete charge of their vehicles despite having imbibed alcohol, and who have caused dreadful accidents as a consequence, and all too often, death.

Now, chief of the Greater Sudbury Police Service advised in a press release that he is beyond frustration. Despite the enormous effort expended to impress upon people that drinking and driving are threats to the well-being of society, people continue to do just that. The number of charges keep increasing, and the incidents of injury and death do as well.

So his police department determined they would begin to list publicly those who have been charged with drunk driving. After all, the newspapers report on a regular basis charges brought for assault, robbery, murder, car theft, break-ins, so why not another kind of criminal offence? Dedicate a list specifically to address that very issue; drunk driving.

Create an aura of public censure that will really count for something. The embarrassment factor of being publicly outed and held up to contempt for insisting on placing society at danger because of a lack of personal restraint could be viewed simply as yet another weapon in the arsenal of public security options.

Predictably, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has some problems with the idea. That listing names of those charged while they have not yet gone through a court procedure where they would be found guilty as charged would, the Association claims, place too unfair an onus on the person charged.

But the charges are not levelled without good cause. Police apprehend drivers whose behaviour alerts to their having been compromised by alcohol consumption before setting out to drive. Whether or not they're found guilty as charged is another thing. There are those who clearly have been guilty as charged but whose pricey lawyers have managed to defray the charges.

Their names are ripe for inclusion on such a list. Better yet, along with the list, police could also post signs on the lawns where they live to identify them as complacently, injudiciously risking their lives and the lives of others through their recreational use of drugs and vehicles.