Read it here.

Now, let me say off the bat that I'm not necessarily proposing that the state should have done something to prevent this guy from driving. For me, as usual, this isn't about the government telling people what to do. This is about guilt, foolish pride and downright stupidity.

"The nine dead -- five women, three men and a 3-year-old girl -- were not identified. " I'm going to speculate here, and its possible I'm going to be wrong; if that's the case, apologies to Mr. Weller in advance. However, it is my guess that Mr. Weller's driving skills have been deteriorating for some time. He drove THREE BLOCKS before his car stopped. It wasn't as if his reaction time was a little off; you have to be really incompetent to go THREE BLOCKS. That doesn't happen overnight.

My own grandfather, God rest his soul, drove for at least three years longer than he should have. It was pure chance/fate/luck/providence (pick your favorite word) that he didn't mow down "five women, three men and a 3-year-old girl." That last victim, in my mind, is the most tragic. Mr. Weller has had the opportunity to live 8 years longer than the life expectancy of an American male; that girl will never see her 8th year.

So, who's culpable? Could it have been prevented? Where is the guilt? Here are several possibilities:

1) Is the state of California guilty for not revoking Mr. Weller's license? Perhaps the frequency of renewal periods or the requirements of a driving test should be changed. This assumes that the correct role of the state is a pre-emptive licensing (something I'm not totally sold on, but can live with for now.)

2) Are Mr. Weller's family (or friends or neighbors) guilty for allowing him to drive? Assuming Mr. Weller didn't wake up yesterday suddenly a poor driver, someone had to know his driving had been less-than-stellar as of late. I'm sure they though, as my family did with my grandfather, "he's lived a long hard life, driving is one of his last remaining privelages, i can't take that away as it would hurt his self-esteem."

3) That brings us, of course, to poor old Mr. Weller, of whom a neighbor said, "A more careful, gentle, loving person you'll never find." True enough, it may be. But a careful, gentle, loving 22 year-old person who has 3 beers on the way home from work and plowed through the same nine people would be sitting in a jail cell waiting for his manslaughter charge. Did Mr. Weller truly think his driving skills were up to snuff? If so, his judgement may have been off. If not, he shouldn't have been driving. Either way, not much different than a drunk driver in my mind.

In Hebrew law there was a clear distinction between manslaughter and murder. It was all about intent. If you intentionally killed someone, you were to be killed, "an eye for an eye." If you killed someone by accident, you were to be severly punished. Someone had still died at your hand, whether you intended it or not. Actions have consequences, and we must live up to them. As far as that went, for the Hebrews, there was even a "right of vengence" in which the family of a wrongfully killed individual could petition for the death of the unintentional killer.

I'm not proposing we hang Mr. Weller. But I'm not proposing that we demand more of our driver's licensing system either. What I'm calling for is individuals to utilize their capacity for self-government; for "careful, gentle, loving" people to also be "humble" enough to say "I don't drive well anymore. I'm giving it up." I fully intend to tell my kids (and have already told my wife) that when it is time, if I don't catch it myself, to just say something and I will be done. I really don't want to kill someone's baby girl. But neither did Mr. Weller.