That I am posting a blog item on a Friday night while y'all are off having a life (you do have a life, right?) is not as pathetic as it might seem. We rotate night shifts here at the paragraph factory and the earth rotated toward me this week.

Here's my question for you as you consider knocking back a few cocktails: What should Vermont do to keep people who've lost their driver's licenses to multiple driving under the influence convictions from driving?

Undoubtedly, you read about the driver going the wrong way on the interstate a few weeks ago, killing a passenger in another car. I think we can universally say that that was an awful turn of events.

It can't help but make you scratch your head and wonder how a person could still be driving after landing four DUIs. In today's Free Press, a letter to the editor writer proposes that people be jailed upon receiving their first DUI and that they be sentenced to watch their car be crushed the very next morning. I understand the frustration that prompts such thoughts, but it does do away with a thing that is crucial to our Constitution called due process. Innocent until proven guilty takes longer than overnight.

Let's be realistic. Locking everybody up for life who gets a DUI is not going to happen, not here where we don't have enough prison cells as it is, and not even if you legalized marijuana at the same time. Nice try, but the solution is going to take more thinking than that.

You do have to wonder how somebody with four DUIs gets auto insurance that costs less than 400 gazillion dollars. Should proof of insurance be a prerequisite for getting a car registered?

Is it as simple as making sure that every cop has instant access to every probation client's status? Does Vermont have the resources to make that happen?

Those are a few thoughts for you to ponder. What are your ideas?

Speaking of knocking back cocktails, I was in the bank this afternoon and overheard some college students whose conversation was so cliched it was almost absurd. Some traditions are timeless. Went sort of like this:

"You have any exams today?"
"Yeah I had four. Got two more next week."
"Are you going out tonight?"
"Yeah, I'm going out. Give me a call."

- Terri Hallenbeck