May 29, 2013 3 min read

In a recent editorial, we suggested the proposal by the National Transportation Safety Board to reduce the blood-alcohol limit for motorists to 0.05 percent might not be the best way to cut down on the real problem drinkers on our roads. As we noted, some opponents of the change from the current 0.08 limit favor other approaches to address the issue, including better use of technology to prevent would-be intoxicated drivers from starting their vehicles and more sobriety checkpoints.

Here’s another idea: Start throwing the book at people who habitually drive drunk.

If you read Wednesday’s newspaper, you most likely saw the story about a Canonsburg man, Aubrey O’Dell McDaniels, who is approaching 10 drunken-driving or related arrests, the latest coming last weekend after he allegedly rear-ended a motorcycle on Gladden Road in Canonsburg. The motorcyclist, a Chartiers Township man, escaped with relatively minor injuries, but he just as easily could have been killed. Which begs the question: Why was McDaniels even in a position to get behind the wheel of a vehicle?

He is wanted in Centre County in connection with a Feb. 6 DUI-related incident, for which he failed to appear in court. He also faces a hearing for a March 3 DUI charge out of Bucks County. McDaniels pleaded guilty in Washington County Court to three DUI charges over a three-month period in 2011. He also was arrested three times in Allegheny County during the same time frame in 2011.

Yet despite all those charges and court appearances, McDaniels, it would appear, must have received a series of slaps on the wrist from the judges who heard his cases, because here he is again, with three arrests already in 2013.

We understand that our county jails already are crowded with DUI offenders, but someone with McDaniels’ track record shouldn’t be in a county jail anyway. Someone with that level of disregard of our laws and the safety of others should be doing significant time behind bars in the state prison system. Perhaps that would leave enough of an impression on McDaniels and those like him to make them change their ways after their release. Perhaps not, but at least the public would be safe while they were incarcerated.

Alcohol is a legal substance, and people are perfectly within their rights to drink to excess as often as they wish in the confines of their own homes, as long as they aren’t bothering others with their behavior. But it’s an entirely different proposition when one of those people decides to get behind the wheel of a vehicle and turn it into a potentially deadly weapon. This reckless indifference to the safety and lives of other people is premeditated and inexcusable, and it should be punished severely.