The Death Penalty. Abolish it. That’s the choice that faced Maryland lawmakers today … but they opted to do other important stuff, according to the Examiner: like surfing the internet. Here’s why I think the death penalty should be abolished:

3. It costs more money to put someone to death than it does to keep them alive in prison on a life-without-parole prison sentence. This shouldn’t be a financial issue, but, well, there it is.

2. It’s punishing on the families of the victims: how many times should they have to go through a trial? I know the counter-argument: we could reduce the appeals process. Really? Because death is pretty final. At least Walter Lomax got to walk out of jail forty years after his questionable conviction. Kind of hard to release a corpse if you have made a mistake.

And last — or, um, first since this is in reverse order — but not by any means least:

1. It doesn’t serve as a deterrent.

On a last, emotional note … death is an escape. Given the choice between spending the next sixty or seventy years in a tiny concrete cell or dying, hell, I’ll take the easy way every day: give me the damn chair! And I don’t for a second believe the talk about how prisoners have it so easy. If people really believed that prisons were luxury resorts they weren’t allowed to leave, they’d be committing crimes in droves. If there’s a choice between life in prison or death, I’d take death: and that’s why people convicted of heinous crimes that would otherwise earn them death should be forced to live the entirety of their natural lives in captivity.

In my e-mail box, from ACW:

I just thought of something… wouldn’t this post of Snay’s, particularly the last line, predate LOLcat speak? If so, is he some sort of prophet that can channel bizarre internet memes of the future, but only when he’s drunk? It is from 10/23/2005 and I think that’s well before LOLcats. Am I wrong?

All I have to say to that is:

Fuk uze intrntz, wherez my royalteez?

UPDATE:

(Many mucho thanks to Common Wombat for the first LOLZCATZ, and adding the text to the second — that’s my kitties!)

$1,051.

That’s a hefty chunk of change for a recent college grad like me. That’s my rent and utilities for a month. That’s a quarter of my yearly car payment. That’s enough Kraft Macaroni & Cheese to, well, make me seriously consider the possibility of offing myself before eating another bowl of that orange-cheese paste.

That’s also what the nation’s traffic accidents are costing me per year, according to a study by AAA, and conducted by Maryland-based Cambridge Systematics Inc. From The Jay-Zee:

To calculate the crash costs, researchers took into account factors such as property damage, lost earnings, medical costs, emergency services, legal costs and travel delays.

The nation’s largest cities, such as New York and Los Angeles, face billions of dollars in costs each year from car accidents. In the New York metropolitan area, they cost the region $18 billion a year, or about $962 per person, while they cost Los Angeles more than $10 billion a year, or $817 per person.

Robert L. Darbelnet, AAA’s president and chief executive, noted that nearly 43,000 people die each year on the nation’s roadways but that “the annual tally of motor vehicle-related fatalities barely registers as a blip in most people’s minds.”

“It’s time for motor vehicle crashes to be viewed as the public health threat they are,” Darbelnet said.

To address the high costs, AAA recommended that lawmakers make safety more of a priority in their transportation planning and pursue measures such as stiffer laws on drunken and impaired driving. The organization also recommended that all states pass primary enforcement seat belt laws, which allow law enforcement officers to stop motorists if their only offense is failing to buckle up.

From my own experiences, I think it’s rather safe to say that Maryland drivers could do with a hefty dose of common sense traffic enforcement. Several years ago, a cop friend told me, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Everyone drives like an angel when they see a police cruiser.” Indeed. I don’t know if you and I are getting the same message from this statement, but it tells me that everyone knows how to safely operate a vehicle. In the absence of visible enforcement, however, we simply choose to speed, dash through red-lights, roll through stop signs, disregard the right of way, and place not only own but the well-being of our fellow citizens in harm’s way.

I think correcting Maryland’s obnoxious driver problem won’t be resolved simply by putting up traffic light cameras or sticking a marked police cruiser on every corner. It’s fine to say that we need to make safety more of a priority, but this problem won’t be resolved by ticketing and fining: there has to be a solution that encourages people to not drive like a reckless fool. I call it “Snay’s Common Sense Traffic Enforcement.” It comes in four somewhat-easy-to-read bullet points:

1. Increased visible and rotating traffic enforcement.

Run radar on the major roads and on neighborhood roads. Utilize unmarked vehicles. Get creative, and get visible! Don’t speed trap the same places everyday: rotate it.

2. Cars are for driving.

Distracted Driving is dangerous driving. No cell-phones. No texting. No bowl of cereal propped in your lap while you’re shaving with your left hand, holding your coffee with your right, and steering with your knees. I’d call this behavior Reckless Endangerment — and it needs to be enforced that way.

3. Get ‘em Young.

Since I think it’s important to encourage good driving skills early (can’t teach an old driver new tricks, and all), a marked increase in severity for new (probationary) drivers. First ticket? Court appearance, safe driving classes, and PBJ. Second ticket? Probationary license suspended, safe driving classes. Third ticket? License revoked until that driver’s 18th birthday.

4. No Fines! Yes Court!

Exactly as it sounds. Fines? We don’t need no stinkin’ fines! (I’m sure Maryland’s politicians would disagree with me.) But all tickets would require the violator to appear in Circuit Court.

Maryland already has Probation Before Judgement, allowing the ticket to be dismissed from a person’s record after its successful completion (i.e.: no moving violations). PBJ is a wonderful deterrent: a way for the driver him or herself to determine whether or not the points from that ticket make their way to their insurance company. All they have to do is drive safe.

Why won’t my grand plan happen? Because no fines would probably be a fairly serious blow to the state’s and the counties’ coffers. So we’re as it’s always been - two hands on the wheel, keep your eyes open, and good luck: we’re all going to need it when we’re on the road with each other. (Watch out for deer, too.)