Should we ban all repeat drunk drivers from ever driving again?

My local paper had this story about the sentencing of another repeat drunk driver guilty of killing another innocent victim.  These stories are all too common and fuel my general eagerness to get extra tough on repeat drunk drivers.  But a notable extra facet of the sentence is what prompted me to blog about this particular case:

A Columbus man was sentenced yesterday to four years in prison for a hit-and-run crash that killed a bicycle rider in 2007.  Spencer Andrews, 26, of Maxwelton Court, also is banned from driving for life, Franklin County Judge Richard S. Sheward ruled….

His attorney, Robert Krapenc, said Andrews regrets not stopping on the dark roadway after hitting Sonney. Andrews has sought counseling about the crash, Krapenc said, but was advised not to contact the Sonney family before sentencing.  “He knows he is going to spend time in prison and he’s said he knows he deserves it,” Krapenc told the judge.

Traci Sonney told the judge that her son wanted to be a teacher and planned to study art at the Columbus College of Art & Design.  “With his passion for life and the creativity he had, he would have been a powerful, powerful motivator,” Mrs. Sonney said. “You left my son mowed down. You’re never going to know what you did to my family.”

She said Andrews didn’t learn from his drunken-driving conviction three years ago. And she asked Sheward to send a message to other hit-and-run drivers.  But she left the courtroom in despair after she heard the sentence.  “It’s not enough,” she said, crying outside.

Though others can comment on whether a four-year prison sentence was enough for the defendant here, I found especially interesting that this relatively young defendant is now “banned from driving for life.”  I do not think I can recall hearing of another sentence that included a lifetime driving ban, but it strikes me as a fairly sensible sentencing provision for some (perhaps all) repeat drunk drivers.

Of course, it may be hard to effectively enforce a lifetime driving ban on all repeat drunk drivers.  But it is also hard to enforce lifetime gun possession bans on all felons and to enforce broad living restrictions on all sex offenders, and yet we still continue with such restrictions because of the threats we believe are posed by felons with guns and sex offenders.  As this story reminds us, because we have good reason to worry about the threats of posed by drunk drivers to innocent lives, the challenges of enforcing lifetime driving bans on repeat drunk drivers should not alone dissuade us from considering this approach to keep the roads safe.