Rep. Allen Farley’s recent article on AL.com about a lack of enforcement of the ignition interlock law was incredibly painful to read. How can judges choose to not enforce a law? License suspensions don’t work; ignition interlocks do. Why ignore that?

I am the mother of Andy Pugh who was killed on Monday, August 12, 2013, exactly one month before his eighteenth birthday by a convicted DUI offender driving on a suspended license. He had just completed band camp and would have started his senior year at Beulah High School in Valley, AL the next week.

The drunk driver, on a beer run, was driving 90 mph in a 45 mph zone on Lee County Road 270 when he blew through a four-way stop. He crossed the centerline and literally drove over the cab of our son’s truck. Mr. Weldon – the drunk driver – also hit the car behind my son head-on, leaving that driver disabled. He has since been convicted of reckless murder and sentenced to 21 years in prison. Andy wanted to help people and had plans to pursue a career in healthcare. Andy was a decorated band member and an artist and poet. He was a rising star that was taken away before he got the chance to see how high he could rise.

I echo Rep. Farley in pleading with Alabama’s judges to enforce the law before someone else’s son’s star is darkened before his time to rise.

Jane Furgerson Mungle

Missouri