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SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Aurora Avenue fatal crash the result of our lax drug policies

Dec 4, 2019, 6:16 AM

Dori Monson's Profile Picture

BY DORI MONSON


KIRO Newsradio Host

We’re getting more details on the horrible car crash on Aurora Avenue a few days ago, Friday of Thanksgiving weekend, that killed two pedestrians, aged 26 and 28, and injured two others.

If you’ve seen the pictures — where a rock wall is shattered and a fire hydrant is taken down — you know how horrific it was.

We’ve now found out from the 23-year-old driver’s own words in the court documents that she was high on meth at the time of the crash. She told police that she closed her eyes while driving and crashed her car intentionally.

An opinion piece in a certain alternative newspaper blamed the Aurora Avenue crash not on the allegedly high driver, but on our “car culture.” No, the “car culture” did not make her crash. That’s what meth does to you. It makes you decide to deliberately crash your car into other human beings.

Dori: LEAD program expansion means drugs are effectively legal in King County

Again, I’ll ask the question. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg — do you think we’re on the right path here, when you have stopped prosecuting personal possession amounts of drugs like meth?

Innocent pedestrians in their 20s are dying on the side of the road on Thanksgiving weekend. This scares me to death. This could have been my wife or my daughters who were hit. It could have been you. It could have been your kids. It could have been your friends or relatives.

We have become one of the drug capitals in the United States because we have made it one of the easiest places to be a drug addict through our lax drug policies. So when the drug addicts commit serious crimes like vehicular homicide, we need to acknowledge the causes.

The politicians are all about doing what is best for the addicts. When are we going to have somebody, anybody, in public life who says that we’ve got to do what is best for our citizens and for our region?

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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Dori: Aurora Avenue fatal crash the result of our lax drug policies