Letter: Dastardly, despicable, drunk driving discouraged

I am sickened by what I read in the crime briefs of the Feb. 17 Chronicle: Two independent incidents of Duke students being charged with driving under the influence. There are few people whom I loathe more than I do drunk drivers. DUI can under no circumstances be excused or tolerated. No person, at any time, at any place, should drive while intoxicated, period.

I find it especially disturbing that drunk driving persists at Duke. Now, I am not so naive as to think that Beau Riston Raich and Robert Graham Reynolds are the first Duke students to do something this stupid. Drunk driving happens every weekend that Duke students are on campus. I know this, I hate this, but I sure as hell don't understand it. In the Gothic microcosm of late-night buses, Safe Rides, cell phones, friends with cars and ready money for cab fares, there is never a shortage of ways to get home without endangering other people.

We like to think of ourselves as enlightened, yet this abominable practice is at best tolerated and at worst glorified here. When the weekend's stories are told on Monday morning, and drunk driving is either directly mentioned or implicitly understood, do we chastise the offender? Usually not. We either laugh it off or, afraid to confront our friends about a real issue, pretend not to notice. One of our fellow students was killed by an intoxicated driver in December. After such a tragedy, how can this campus continue to tolerate drunk driving?

It doesn't matter how many forums we hold to address this problem. If people don't start being smarter, and friends don't start taking stronger actions to stop drunk driving before it happens and condemn it after it happens, nothing will ever change. My guess is that if this letter gets printed, people will read it, nod in agreement and then forget about it by party time on Friday night. I hope that I'm proven wrong.

I also hope that, if convicted, Raich and Reynolds are given the maximum penalties for their offenses and that they are permanently kicked out of Duke.