The Monitor’s editorial of Jan. 23 on Senate Bill 436 expressed more concern for distracted drivers than their victims.
I nearly bled out at the scene, will have eight surgeries to repair three destroyed limbs (two surgeries in 2020), will do two years of rehabilitation and will have $1 million in medical costs.
The distracted driver “self reported” to serve 60 days and was not ordered to pay restitution. My son, who attends Wesleyan, mused, “How ironic they are taking the position of defending the well-being of the distracted drivers.”
The issue of distracted driving does not require further study. New Hampshire’s Department of Safety, the American Automobile Association and countless other agencies have the data to know that the distraction of an electronic mobile device is now more hazardous than driving under the influence of alcohol.
This bill seeks to make the consequences fit the crime when distracted driving results in serious bodily injury or fatality; it is neither mandatory nor an exclusive form of penalty, though.
This bill gives prosecutors and judges appropriate discretion to seek harsher penalties when circumstances warrant. At the same time, an offender can present mitigating factual circumstances that may move the judge to impose a lighter sentence based on the overall case.
Very few convictions lead to maximum sentences even for violent crimes.
The challenge of distracted driving requires action, which is why this bill takes aim at broadening the discretion available to judges and prosecutors who currently have their hands tied in cases where dangerous, unlawful driving causes undue harm on victims ending up disabled or dead.
The New Hampshire Legislature refuses to appropriately fund highway safety measures like highway dividers on known high-hazard New Hampshire roadways and the governor refuses to support increased fines. However, this does not absolve or preclude drivers from simply obeying the law and respecting public safety.
For distracted driving crimes involving serious bodily injury or fatality, the suggestion that community service offers fair punishment, rehabilitation or is restorative justice is naïve.
The New Hampshire nonprofit “supervising” the convicted criminal who nearly killed me because he ignored public safety and broke the law by reacting to a text is not meaningfully supervising his community service. Nor is it able to.
The New Hampshire judicial branch and New Hampshire nonprofits do not have the structure or the resources to enforce this disingenuous approach to holding convicted criminals to account.
More basically, embedded in the idea of community service are a set of lofty presumptions about the convict which may or may not be true, including but not limited to: one has skills to share with an appropriate nonprofit; one will be inconvenienced; one will learn/grow from doing community service.
Vehicles are, effectively, 2- to 4-ton weapons. SB 436 makes clear that when an individual is driving in New Hampshire, an electronic mobile device is no longer more important than public safety; and if you cause serious bodily injury for disregarding the law then you will be held to account.
This bill seeks proportional justice available to fit the circumstances of the crime.
Until the early 1980s, lots of drunken drivers served little to no time when they disabled or killed someone. Society learned to reject “one for the road.”
Let’s create a set of penalties for “aggravated distracted driving.”
(Lisa D. Beaudoin lives in Temple.)