Police chases

Last year, there were officially 676 police chases in the Houston metropolitan area. These resulted in 34 fatalities and hundreds more injuries. There are many arguments about whether these chases are justified or not. I won't get into that. The bottom line (for me) is that citizens who choose to run from the police and choose to put the general public at unnecessary risk DO NOT DESERVE TO HAVE A DRIVER'S LICENSE. Their car should be impounded and sold at auction. They should serve a minimum jail sentence, the length of which would vary depending on prior history and the damage and injuries caused during the chase. That jail term might be 6 months; it might be 10 years; it might be life.
More often than not, these criminals are only charged with evading arrest. The 17 red lights they ignored, the 4 cars they hit and ran away from, the excessive speeds they drove and the cars they ran off the roads -- are all forgotten about.
In a majority of cases, drugs and/or alcohol are involved. What a surprise.
A driver's license is a privilege, not a right. Unless and until the consequences of their actions have some real bite, these chases will continue to increase, putting us all at more and more risk.

** reminder that we have a new topic of the week at Sobriety Society

todAAy i AAm grAAteful & thAAnkful

that I'm doing the best I can

that Scott W and I got to meet up with Scott (Sober Nuggets) @ Starbuck's here in Houston

for new faces at AA meetings

for old faces at AA meetings

that by the age of 18, I realized that black mollies (speed) would probably not be the way to live my life, so I stopped using them

for the handful of times I tried cocaine and did not like it at all

that since getting sober, I have not yet found the need to intentionally make hurtful or insensitive comments to other people

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
-Emily Dickinson