Police suspect alcohol and speed combined to take two lives and damage two others in Norfolk during the early morning hours of Saturday, June 11.
According to press reports, a Hyundai ran a red light at the intersection Johnstons Road and N. Military Highway around 2 a.m., killing 20-year-old Norfolk resident Michael Hall and Laura Etzell, 21, of Chesapeake. A third person riding in an Acura with Hall and Etzell spent the weekend in critical condition. Neither that individual nor the Hyundai’s driver, who suffered only minor injuries, has been publicly identified.
Continuing a yearslong trend, Virginia enacted more new sanctions for drunken driving this year. While requiring repeat offenders to use a breathalyzer-ignition interlock device for 10 years and strengthening the penalty for removing such a device could help discourage some people from taking the wheel when they have had too much to drink, nothing will ever replace personal responsibility.