Like all counties in Pennsylvania, Butler County has its share of repeat drunken-driving offenders.

While it gets tougher to be forgiving when a person, having been convicted of a drunken-driving offense once, is convicted a second time, individuals and communities as a whole have grounds for an unforgiving attitude about multiple repeat offenders. These chronic drunk drivers are a constant danger to other motorists, pedestrians, others' vehicles and private property — and themselves.

People who don't drive while impaired need to press the courts to explain why multiple repeat DUI offenders are given the opportunity to risk another similar arrest. They need to ask state lawmakers why they refuse to add more teeth to sentencing guidelines for such individuals — people like Christopher M. Banks, 31, of Butler Township, who currently is facing the possibility of a seventh DUI conviction.

Banks was arrested by Butler police on a variety of charges, including DUI, as the result of a traffic stop at about 10 p.m. April 8 on West North Street in the city. Banks allegedly was driving erratically, including traveling the wrong way on a one-way street.

Among Banks' six prior DUI convictions was a 2009 case in which he was pulled over for trying to drive on two flat tires.

Banks' case is one of many that illustrate the necessity for the courts and state General Assembly to toughen the law in regard to such repeat offenders.

If vehicles involved in drug trafficking can be seized by authorities, the law should permit a vehicle being driven by a multiple-DUI offender — whether it's his or her vehicle or someone else's — to be seized as well.

Meanwhile, courts should no longer issue slap-on-the-wrist penalties to repeat offenders.

There must be longer periods of house arrest, longer periods of electronic monitoring and, for people like Banks, prison sentences that will keep them “dry” for a long time. Therapy and counseling should be part of the plan too, but repeat drunk drivers must be kept off the road.

A greater sense of fear about what might lie ahead must be instilled in people who repeatedly drive while drunk.

Another point:

It's possible, actually probable, that a person who has been apprehended four, five, six, seven or more times for drunken driving has driven while drunk more often, but not been caught.

It should not take a fatal crash to keep such people from ever again getting behind the wheel when they've been drinking.

The General Assembly, the courts and communities should have no tolerance toward drunken drivers. People observing drivers who are operating their vehicles erratically — suggesting possible intoxication — should immediately notify authorities, such as by calling 911.

As for Banks, if his latest case produces a conviction or guilty plea, he should receive the longest sentence that sentencing guidelines allow. Regardless of his personal circumstances, there should be no leniency.

Only by being a county that is tough against drunken drivers will Butler County's rate of drunken-driving recidivism markedly decrease.

Leniency regarding the drunken-driving epidemic can — and often does — have deadly consequences.