Drinking and driving is an issue that has been addressed in many ways and many formats but I recently saw an article that made me take pause.

I read an article about a young woman who had been involved in a tragic automobile accident that lead to the death of her best friend. The young lady who survived the accident, was the driver and she was convicted of DUI. Her sentence was only 30 days in jail.

As I reread the paragraph that pronounced her conviction, I was stunned to think that someone could drink and drive and cause an accident that claimed the life of another person only to be sentenced to 30 days in jail.

The stepfather of the victim, who was understandably angry, claimed the young woman’s actions were the same as an act of murder. His step-daughter’s life was taken away by the careless act of another person who proclaimed to be her friend. I had to wonder though, what would the friend have thought of all this?

Would the victim ask for forgiveness and mercy for her friend? Probably. I’m sure that neither girl thought that anything bad like an accident would happen to them that night.

They probably didn’t even give driving home drunk a second thought the night in question. After all, they were both in their 20s - in their prime of life - and had every reason to want to live life to its fullest.

I find it ironic that one can take a gun and shoot another person and end up serving life in prison, while this young woman got behind the wheel of an automobile after drinking and killed her friend, and she gets only 30 days.

An automobile can be a deadly weapon in the wrong hands much like a gun can be deadly weapon when the trigger is pulled.

True, its not the automobile or the gun that kills, it’s the people who are using them.

North Carolina’s drinking and driving laws are tough, but they need to be tougher. When one takes a life because of a conscious decision they made to get behind the wheel drunk, should they not face the same penalty as anyone else who takes a life? The person took a life even if it involved an automobile accident.

We have criminals sitting in our jails every day that committed unspeakable crimes while under the influence of one drug or another, including alcohol.

We have alcohol education programs in our high schools and colleges and many work places offer counseling for those who think they may be an alcoholic. People can not say they have never been told of the dangers of drinking and driving. They can say, however, that they chose to ignore the information.

Isn’t it time we toughen our DUI laws? Some states have chosen to toughen their DUI laws to make someone who causes the death of an individual as the result of drinking and driving equal to premeditated murder. Their reasoning is that due to the educational programs and counseling that are available for those who think they have alcohol problems, there is no excuse for driving drunk.

In those states with such laws, their representatives say simply that driving drunk is the same as premeditated murder because those drivers who do it admit that they know its against law and they admit they know they can cause an accident that potentially can seriously injure or kill another individual.

So you decide