hit-run-holgatejpg-297f5c1aa756eb53.jpg

Portland police at the scene of a fatal hit-and-run crash on Southeast Holgate Boulevard in February.

(The Oregonian)

I've never met Miriam Clinton.

But looking at her driving record, I'm left wondering if the uncontrollable sobs before the cameras last week were for the young man she left broken and staring at death along a dark Portland road.

As a testament to her narcissism behind the wheel, the 29-year-old Lake Oswego waitress was in a Multnomah County courtroom to plead guilty to, among other things, hit-and-run.

"It really is a very selfish crime," Portland Police traffic Sgt. Todd Davis told me as he sifted through this week's two-inch stack of reported hit-and-runs.

Selfish. Immoral. Rampant.

In Portland alone, police take reports on more than 5,200 hit-and-run crashes, from fender benders to serious injuries and fatalities, each year. That's 100 a week; that's mind-boggling.

Without the resources to investigate them all, the police have to perform triage. Still, in a typical year, only about half of Oregon cases where a driver leaves the scene without rendering aid to an injured or dying person end in an arrest, court records show.

So, maybe it's time state lawmakers diverted some of their tough-on-traffic-crime efforts away from distracted driving to slow what is becoming a social epidemic.

Do it in the name of Michael Cooley, the 59-year-old postal worker hit by a pickup while he was riding his bike in North Portland in June. He's still mending from life-threatening injuries. The driver of the white Ford truck is still hiding out there somewhere.

Do it in the names of Abigail Robinson and Anna Dieter-Eckerdt, 11 and 6, who were struck and killed while frolicking in a leaf pile on a Forest Grove street last month. Or do it for every struggling family that has to drain its bank account because a drive-by coward totaled its only car in the middle of the night.

Frankly, Oregon makes it too easy for lily-livered motorists to play the odds of not getting caught.

The statute of limitations on serious life-and-limb hit-and-runs is just three years -- the same as dumping garbage on the side of the highway. For property damage, you can run out the clock in 12 months.

Here's an idea from our southern neighbors: Double the statute of limitations.

Two weeks ago, responding to a "culture of driver apathy," California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill to extend the hit-and-run statute of limitations from three years to six.

In fact, several states are stiffening penalties for what has become a national scourge. In September, Texas made the penalty for hit-and-run fatalities equal to that for intoxicated manslaughter.

Despite complaints from traffic cops, victims, prosecutors and judges, however, Oregon's Legislature has only tentatively tapped the accelerator.

"It's clear that we're seeing more of these cases," said Rep. Chris Garrett, D-Lake Oswego. "But it's been a tough funding environment to try to increase criminal penalties in recent years. The proposals go to Ways and Means, and they don't get out."

Garrett deserves credit for at least wrangling the votes to pass House Bill 2542, which now mandates a three-year license suspension for Oregon drivers convicted of fleeing the scene of an injury crash. It used to be just one year, the same as a property hit-and-run.

<a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/7526075/">Do you think Oregon's hit-and-run laws are tough enough?</a>

Still, as Garrett admits, that little victory ignores a cold reality: Oregon's hit-and-run laws reward drunken drivers for leaving the scene and turning themselves in later, after evidence of intoxication has dissipated. You see, unlike DUII charges, there's not even a mandatory minimum jail sentence for hit-and-run convictions.

Automatic license revocations could also be tougher and longer. Not life. But something that feel like it. If you're not adult – or human – enough to do the right thing in a crash, you deserve to spend several years waiting for TriMet, riding a bicycle and mooching rides, thinking hard about how driving is a privilege.

Miriam Ann Clinton pleads guilty in hit-and-run case 3 Gallery: Miriam Ann Clinton pleads guilty in hit-and-run case

Of course, we tried that with Clinton. On the night of Aug. 16, when she plowed her Subaru into 21-year-old Henry Schmidt as he walked his flat-tire bicycle along Southwest Barbur Boulevard, Clinton was driving drunk and with her fourth license suspension since 2007.

Clinton, who has a 2-year-old boy, didn't stop to help another mother's son. With the minutes ticking away, she could have at least made an anonymous 911 call to get help to Schmidt. She didn't. Fortunately, a passing TriMet driver noticed Schmidt, broken bones protruding through skin, his spleen lacerated, lying in the bike lane.

After spending a few years in prison, Clinton will face her fifth license suspension. But ultimately, the bigger question may be, how does the state keep Clinton, or anyone else, from driving while suspended? It's as if these people are addicted to driving. Or maybe the honor system really is dead in America.

Garrett doesn't have the answer yet, but he hopes to find it. "I'm going to keep this going in the next regular session," he promised.

By the way, that's not until 2015. Or, as they might say in Portland, 10,000 hit-and-run cases away.

-- Joseph Rose