A law requiring drunk drivers to pay child support if a parent is killed has passed in Tennessee.
Making the decision to drive drunk behind the wheel of a car has tragically caused the loss of many lives around the world.
In Tennessee alone, 243 lives were fatally affected by alcohol-impaired drivers in 2018 and the number keeps increasing.
This is why a new form of legislation has been passed in Tennessee House on Monday, requiring drunk drivers to pay child support to families who’ve lost a parent as a result of their reckless decision to sit behind the wheel.
The law, ‘Bentley’s Law’, aims to hold those drivers accountable for their actions.
According to KOMONEWS, under HB 1834, if a driver is convicted of vehicular homicide, they will have to pay child maintenance to each of the victim’s children until the children are eighteen.
While some people said “It’s about time”…Others said, “If we can’t get fathers to pay for their own biological children with child support, I don’t see this actually happening.”
What if they’re serving a sentence as a consequence for their actions?
Well, they will be given a year after they’re released before they have to begin to pay the victim, who has to deal with the loss of their parent.
If when the child reaches adulthood (eighteen), and the money has still not been paid, it will continue to be paid until the day they’ve reached the support limit. And from then on, they’ll have to learn to live with the life they had taken due to their intoxicated decision, and the fact a child will never see their parent again.
Cecilia Williams created the law that has now been passed in Tennessee.
Her grandson, who is now 5 years old, lost his family to a drunk driver, and Williams shared a conversation between herself and Bentley, who the law was named after, on Facebook.
“Bentley asked me a strange question a couple of days ago, I was a bit shocked. He asked me if he could see a picture of the guy who killed his family,” she began on a status.
“I told him I don’t think it’s a good idea and that his beautiful eyes don’t need to see ugliness. So he repeated his question, I asked him why, and this is what his little 5-year-old mind came back with.
“‘Because when I grow big I want to remember why I need to be a police officer,'” she wrote.
And although Williams doesn’t think it’s time to show the little boy a picture of the man who took the lives of his mum, dad, and sibling… She is glad that a bill has finally passed, being able to hold people accountable for their actions.
And so are we. We are so sorry to anybody who has lost loved ones as a result of intoxicated drivers, and we hope that one day, you can find a way to heal.