The New
Year’s gloom is slowly abating, it definitely will go away for good with advent
of regular daily grind in the corpo-world, due to commence the day after
tomorrow.
Daily dose
of news does not fill one with overly optimism though. Headlines in recent days
were dominated by tidings of ‘carnage’ in Kamien Pomorski in north-west Poland,
where on New Year’s Day an inebriated and intoxicated 26-year-old male murdered
six people and left two other injured. The fatalities are members of two
families who went with children for a New Year’s Day stroll. They were out of
luck to be smashed by a somersaulting red BMW. In fact every one of us could
have lost life in such brutal way.
The
massacre gave rise to public outrage for many reasons. Not only because the
culprit was guilty of drunk-driving, not only because in 2006 he was once
deprived of his driving license for driving under influence (recidivist), not
only because in seconds he took away several human beings’ lives. The most
appalling was that he would be subject to up to 15 years of imprisonment, and
charged with drunk-driving and causing fatal accident, while many believe he
should be held accountable of murder and his 20-year-old female passenger
(sober at the time of accident), who had done nothing to prevent him from
sitting behind the wheel and argued with during the journey, should be
accomplice. (BTW – what virtues has that man had to impress a woman?)
After the
senseless death of six people, problem of drunk-driving has come under fire in
the media and among politicians. The government intends to put forth far more
severe punishments for drunk-driving and thus crack down on plague of pinheads
sitting behind the wheel under influence.
Whether the
stricter penalties serve their purpose is a debatable issue. The problem of
drunk-driving is more social than political or legal (although if such crime as
the one committed by 26-year-old bandit is not categorised as murder, it lays
bare an evident shortcoming of the Polish penal code). The heart of the problem
has been rightly located by Michael, who points out it is the ‘tacit consent’ /
‘acquiescence’ for drinking alcohol and sitting behind the wheel thereafter in
the Polish society. Written law might fulfil its role better or worse, but it
will surely do it better, if certain behaviours become intolerable. Drafting a
new, restrictive law with severe punishments for drunk-driving and enacting it
is a matter of weeks. Eradicating the ‘tacit consent’ for minds of millions of
Poles is a task for years.
As
correctly noted, people sit behind the wheel tanked-up, not because they are
not precluded from it by gentle punishment, it is because they expect not to be
caught. From economic perspective, a drunk driver considers the situation in
their intoxicated brain in the following way: expected punishment = punishment
times odds of being caught. If the latter is low, even if the former is high,
the outcome is low and they are more likely to drive…
A law which
is not enforceable is worth nothing… What is the point for irreversible loss of
driving licence? Maybe my way of thinking is weird, but this measure simply
does not work. If somebody is to sit behind the wheel, they will do this, no
matter if they possess the document or not. Forfeiture of property (vehicle)
and pecuniary penalties should serve as primary measures against inebriated
drivers.
That
‘carnage’ is not the only incident from recent days which called into question
faith in people…
On 28
December 2013 a 22-year-old male killed with a hammer his 30-year-old friend
and his 8-year-old son, who accidentally witnessed the murder. Then the
criminal stole 1,000 PLN and the victim’s car and dashed off. His escaped did
not last long – soon after he crashed the car and was detained by the police.
The murder was committed with cold blood.
On New
Year’s Eve, in Łódź, a drunk pregnant (9th month) 31-year-old woman, was run
down by a car. Circumstances of the accident still remain unclear, but from the
picture that emerges it transpires she was a member of gang which threatened to
damage cars in order to wheedle out money from their owns. One of their victims
was a 67-year-old man returning from fireworks show. While trying to run away,
he probably did not see the pregnant woman lying on the street and mowed her
down. The woman died on the same day, her child passed away two days after
(this is the most probably scenario presented in the media)
On the same
day, somewhere in southern Poland a drunk 33-year-old man almost trounced to
death a 3-month-old infant. The child is fighting for life.
On New
Year’s Day three men in their 20’s threw a firework into a house inhabited by a
disabled man. For kicks. The firework set the fire. The man with first and
second degree burns was taken to hospital, his dwelling is uninhabitable. For
kicks…
And while I
was writing it, a drunk driver in Bytom hit into a group of people.
Fortunately, nobody was killed, nor severely injured.
Down in the
dumps, I was surely oversensitive to such news. These eye-popping examples of
cruelty and idiocy, although gruesome and unacceptable, should not spoil the
overall picture of Poland. It is not the country of widespread criminality,
full of drunk murderers, albeit in terms of common sense behind the wheel,
catching up with more civilised nations would improve safety on Polish roads.
The only alarming common denominator of all misdeeds mentioned above is that
they were committed by relatively young (aged less than 35) people. This does not cast
good light on generation which in decade or two should become Poland’s elite.
I wish such
accident do not recur. I can merely wish, as I fail to come up with a
prescription for successful measures decreasing criminality. I only hazard a
guess it is not a task for politicians or lawmakers. It is a task for social
engineers and everyone who could tamper with people’s mindsets…
