Getting behind the wheel of an automobile intoxicated is one of the most irresponsible things a human being can do.
Even more these days. It’s not like 20-30 years ago when people could halfway get away with complaining about how they can get their car home. Now, you have every means to responsibly get home safely and without harming anyone else.
Shoot, even twenty years ago when I was in the military everyone was given a card that they could hand a cab driver in the city we were stationed that if he needed to get home when we were drunk we could hand the driver the card and they would take the fare out of the next paycheck.
There’s no excuse for driving drunk.
Some countries believe that the death penalty is the right way to go for certain reprehensible crimes. Whether they are the sexual assault of a child or murder, every country has its own rule. Kenya, recently, for example, has decided to institute the death penalty for poachers caught killing the country’s most beautiful animals. Taiwan has decided to increase the penalty for convicted drunk drivers to be death by lethal injection – and most people are cheering at the change.
In late March, Taiwan’s cabinet has approved a draft of an amendment to the Criminal Code that would allow prosecutors to pursue the death penalty for any person who killed another while driving drunk. The change to the law would make it possible for homicide by drunk driving to be indictable as a murder offense and not just manslaughter or something less dangerous in the courts. If the deed is found to be “intentional,” which most drunk driver cases are, then the death penalty could be the punishment.
Although the death penalty for drunk driving position has not yet been approved – it is pending final say by the parliament, it has been met with a lot of support, and just as much resistance.
The maximum penalty that people can get for killing someone while drunk driving is only ten years behind bars. That’s not enough many people believe. Residents of the Asian country want perpetrators to face the wrath of the government, especially since they put people at risk when they get behind the wheel drunk.
“Cases of drunk driving leading to death are rampant… drink drivers recklessly caused accidents that took lives and destroyed families to result in irreparable regret,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement.
In January, a 40-year-old man got behind the wheel while intoxicated. He smashed his car into a taxi. He killed three people and injured three others, including himself.
Taiwan believes that men like him deserve to face the death penalty. The people want drunk drivers to know how serious their actions are.