Traffic Deaths, OWI Fatalities, Toothless Rhetoric All On The Rise In Wisconsin

Wisconsin state officials have really dropped the ball when it comes to highway safety.

Wisconsin highway deaths were up for August, and our state was also one of the few where fatalities from Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) are increasing - - against a national decline.

The state is participating in a national OWI crackdown and television ad campaign against drunk driving, and that's fine.

But the state needs a higher-visibility, year-round educational program about alcohol abuse that would be added to school curricula and would used by other organizations.

Wisconsin needs an awakening, an attitude adjustment about alcohol, personal responsibility, social condemnation and enforcement of the law.

And speaking of the law, happened to all that talk at the State Capitol about toughening our weak OWI statutes?

Stories about OWI deaths are all too frequent, as Journal Sentinel columnist Jim Stingl noted.

His column was prepared before one particularly gruesome OWI hit-and-run, where a late-night drunk driver killed a female pedestrian in Brown Deer - - her body not discovered for hours, authorities said.

In Wisconsin, a first OWI arrest still results only in a ticket.

You have to get arrested four times before you are charged with a felony, so dangerous repeat offenders are out there on the highway with mere misdemeanors on their records, and their cars back in their possession, because weak-kneed, drunkenness-enabling state officials have given their permission.

The Tavern League, the brewing lobby, and Wisconsin's cultural love affair with booze still have too much sway.

Remember the outrage this spring after a repeat offender in Oconomowoc, forbidden to drove while waiting to report to jail for a prior OWI conviction, got behind the wheel of his SUV while stoned and killed a pregnant woman motorist and her daughter, officials charge?

That led to lots of bold politician talk and headlines, but here it is September, and while legislators are out of session and campaigning at their wine-and-cheese parties and big-time fundraisers where the bars are open, Wisconsin motorists, bikers, bicyclists and pedestrians are being killed by drunk drivers with sickening frequency.