Drunk-Driving Arrests Increase

I’ve never been more motivated to respond to an article as I was after reading your front-page report on drunk driving arrests in Los Angeles over the past year (Dec. 3). Enough is enough. I suppose prohibition is next, but personally, I hope I’m not around to see it.

Instead of mothers, students and everyone else against drunk driving self-proclaiming what progress they’ve made to get almost 29,000 people off the streets this year, why don’t they put some of that energy into creating ways to assist people who nonmaliciously want a few drinks to get home? As a Westside resident for 10 years, let’s face it, public transportation stinks. I do drink and drive because I choose not to be a prisoner in my apartment.

To have organizations and government brag about the fact that they got that “alcoholic” secretary, mailman or grocery checker, who maybe had a bad day and just had a couple of drinks--who might have not had a drink in months--into an AA program, jail and fines far beyond their means just makes me sick. What rehabilitation are we talking about here?

I, too, lost a close friend this year over a drunk-driving accident. Why not make part of drunk-driving punishment for first offenders 30 days of driving legally intoxicated people home instead of attending classes that they don’t need, paying fines they can’t afford and causing anger and hardship where it didn’t exist? It’s the season to help--will someone?

PAMELA JOHNSON, Los Angeles