Dude, you're really all over the map here. First off, you can eliminate your quotation marks from "criminals'. Driving drunk is a crime, and drunk drivers are criminals.

In regards to why tired drivers aren't subject the same scrutiny, I can only imagine it's because Tired is so much harder to quantify, for both the offender and the law enforcement officer. There are rough guidelines (~1 drink / hr) that every licensed driver encounters in taking their driving test that give them at least a basic idea of what their BAC would be after X number of drinks. On top of that, you're cautioned that this is a ROUGH estimate, and that a smaller person or someone who was drinking on an empty stomach could be significantly more impaired. No such guidelines are available for a tired driver. Then imagine what happens when that person is pulled over: a highway patrolman doesn't carry a device around that you can blow into to indicate how tired you are, does he?

As far as cell phone usage goes, that too is changing. Cell phones are still relatively new to our society in comparison to alcohol. As such, you can expect there to be far more data implicating drunk driving as dangerous than cell phone use. However, as these new findings become available and confirm the truth about the distractions of cell phone use behind the wheel, state after state is implementing more rigorous legislation against it. Here in California, we've started by mandating that all cell phone use behind the wheel be handsfree, either from speakerphone or headset use. Texting behind the wheel is prohibited. And drivers under the age of 18 cannot even go handsfree. Of course, the punishment is nowhere nearly as strict as that for drunk drivers, but it's a start.

Oh, and I'm sorry to hear that your probation-breaking pedophile friend is struggling. Really, my heart goes out to him.

<Today some of the laws are crazier than some of the crimes. >

Which alone is reason to be very mindful about not committing the crime.

As usual, Adam, you don't know what you're talking about. I wrote "repeat DUI offenders." And you chose some story of some sorry-ass smart D.C.-area lawyer who should've known better but still chose to drive under the influence and got caught DUI. That's her tough luck. Was it premeditated on her part to drink and drive? Geeze, to even answer the question tells a person's intelligence. Or lack thereof.

Here are some better stories. Do you notice the local angle in them, as well as the repeat DUI offender theme?

Story One:
At about 1 p.m. on that sunny Monday after Easter [March 28, 2005], six-time DUI offender Joseph Lynchard left his brother’s bar after drinking more than a liter of red wine beginning at 8 a.m. He got into a pickup his brother bought for him.

And he slammed into Kathryn Black of Clearlake. She’d stopped to rest along Mark West Springs Road, straddling her bike. She suffered catastrophic brain, neck and spinal injuries. Lynchard’s blood-alcohol level was 0.24 percent, three times the legal limit for driving.

This week, Lynchard and his brother, Eddie, agreed to pay about $1.75 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Black family. The trial had been set to begin Monday.

Story Two:
A woman who Santa Rosa police say caused a three-car crash Monday on Highway 12, killing herself and a 77-year-old woman, was wanted on a warrant for driving without a license and had four prior DUI convictions.

Sonoma County court Commissioner Carla Bonilla signed a no-bail arrest warrant for Rosanne Starr Webb, 52, of Santa Rosa, on March 2, 2005, after Webb failed to show up to serve a 10-day jail sentence for driving without a license in 2004. She was never detained on the warrant.

Webb's driving privileges had been revoked after she was arrested twice in a four-day period in March 2002, once in Sonoma and once in Santa Rosa, for separate drunken driving offenses, according to court records.

Webb also was convicted of driving without a license in 1996. Court records available Tuesday were unclear whether Webb's driving privileges had ever been restored as the case lay dormant the past three-plus years.

"It doesn't appear that she had a valid license," Santa Rosa Police Lt. Doug Schlief said.

Story Three:
[This asshole didn't get charged for DUI hit-and-run because it took nearly half a day for the police to find and arrest him. By then, he'd sobered up. He had a history of DUI.]

A Bolinas man pleaded guilty in Marin County Superior Court Thursday to all charges in connection with a crash on Panoramic Highway that killed a motorcycle rider and injured another.

Mauro Fabrizio Iaconi's pleas came as his trial was about to start before Judge Terrence Boren. In return for his guilty pleas, the judge agreed to limit Iaconi's sentence to 10 years and eight months in prison, Deputy Public Defender Pedro Oliveros said.

Iaconi, 44, faced 13 years and eight months if convicted of the charges, Oliveros said.

Iaconi pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter, hit-and-run causing death, hit-and-run causing great bodily injury and reckless driving.