san diego dui attorney news

he Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity stepping up to present an innovative seminar on the hazards of alcohol use including drunken driving.

Co-sponsored by UWF, the seminar is open to all university students.

It's the kind of community leadership we need.

The police can't catch all the drunken drivers. Sadly, we often discover them only after they have killed someone.

As we have to know all too sadly in this community, the threat of DUI is a message that can't be shouted from the rooftops too often.

Especially for younger people.

We're also proud to hear that the local seminar was inspired by the News Journal's series on DUI published in December.

That series detailed the 1,719 DUI arrests made in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in 2006, and examined the carnage and lost lives that resulted.

We have far too many otherwise good citizens serving long jail sentences because they made the bad decision to drink and drive.

The cases come with too great a regularity.

On March 25, Escambia School Superintendent Jim Paul faces arraignment on a drunken-driving charge in Pinellas County.

Last week, a Texas man pleaded guilty in a drunken-driving crash that killed a Navarre High School student last summer. He faces up to 46 years in prison.

In late January, 19-year-old Joshua Harris of Pace was sentenced to 30 years in state prison in the drunken-driving deaths of two women.

In mid-January, Jimmy Coleson was found guilty of DUI manslaughter and faces 16 years in prison for causing a crash on Gulf Beach Highway that killed his 22-year-old passenger.

In early January, Gary White, 41, pleaded guilty to DUI-manslaughter for the death on the night of June 23 of 7-month-old Chloe Collar of Birmingham, Ala., when White slammed his truck into the back of a sport utility vehicle on U.S. 29 carrying Chloe and her parents.

We have far too many of victims of DUI now lying in eternal graves; six people lost their lives in the two counties in 2006 due to wrecks involving drivers who were drunk.

What it says is that you face the risks of DUI every time you take the wheel � whether you have had a drink or not. Because every time you drive, some of the drivers sharing the road with you have had too much to drink.

Do the math: 1,719 DUI arrests over 365 days is an average of almost five arrests per day.

The scariest statistic, of course, is the one we don't know: How many drunken drivers are not caught?

We congratulate Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity for doing its part to get the word out.