Speed up implementation of law designed to prevent impaired driving

Nov. 8, 2014, began like any other Saturday. I walked my dog, Gizmo, talked with family and made plans to see a movie with a friend. As I left the theater, I returned a call from my mom. "Should I wait up?" she asked in her sweet voice. “Don’t wait up,” I said. “I’ll be home in 20 minutes.”

I never made it to our Willowbrook home that night — and wouldn’t for two and a half months.

A drunken driver traveling the wrong way down the expressway hit me head-on. Her blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit hours after the crash. I woke up to a state trooper telling me I was lucky to be alive. Then, he told a woman in the same emergency room bay to look at me, saying, “That’s the woman you hit,” and everything went numb.

The crash left me paralyzed from the waist down. I suffered a spinal cord injury, severe internal bleeding, 13 broken bones, a severed artery, organ damage and a traumatic brain injury. I spent months in hospitals, relearning how to sit, stand, walk and manage basic functions.

Over the past 11 years, I’ve endured more than 21 surgeries, the most recent just weeks ago. While I live with permanent neurological damage, I am grateful I can walk.

After rehab, my sister encouraged me to seek support. Through Mothers Against Drunk Driving, I found purpose and community. Today, I serve as a MADD national ambassador, sharing my story to help end impaired driving.

The bipartisan Honoring Abbas Family Legacy to Terminate, or HALT, Act, which Congress passed in 2021, is one of the most significant traffic safety advances in decades. It requires passive technology in all new vehicles to detect and prevent impaired driving. It is estimated to save over 10,000 lives each year.

Yet critical deadlines to implement this law have been missed. Regulatory delays and misinformation about cost and government overreach is slowing progress despite a lack of evidence. While policymakers debate hypotheticals, lives are lost to a 100% preventable crime.

To my fellow Illinoisans: We must stop treating these crashes as inevitable and push for implementation of the HALT Law, because the lives of our families and communities depend on it. Mine did too; instead I will live with the consequences of someone else’s actions for the rest of my life.

Erin Rollins, Bolingbrook

Phasing out subminimum wage is critical for women of color

Chicago is a beacon for valuing and protecting workers, especially the Black and Brown women who keep this city strong. Our city has passed measures that build the financial power of working women, particularly those in low-paid jobs, including the 2023 adoption of an ordinance that phases out the subminimum wage for tipped workers over five years.

Now, these hard-working people are under attack — not just by the federal administration but right here in our own city. More than half of tipped workers in Chicago are women, and the majority are Black or Latina. Most make less than $35,000 a year. They’re already squeezed by rising costs — housing, gas, groceries and health care. And in addition to the injustice of making less than minimum, those same workers are disproportionately likely to be sexually harassed at work.

On March 18, the Chicago City Council voted 30-18 to end the phase-out of the subminimum wage for tipped workers, stripping them of the dignity of a full minimum wage. It’s disgraceful the vote came in the middle of Women’s History month and during a meeting where the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights icon and workers’ rights champion, was honored.

At a time when the federal administration is attacking the rights of women and people of color and targeting Illinois and Chicago, the City Council needs to shore up the rights and financial security of working people — not tear them down. Businesses are also shouldering rising costs, but the solution isn't to target the working class, who are living on even thinner ice. As a lifelong Chicagoan and proud South Sider, I’m beyond outraged to see the City Council place the demands of the business lobby above the needs of working people.

Mayor Brandon Johnson used his veto power to stop this damaging vote from becoming law. But the industry lobby will push City Council members to override that veto. Chicagoans must stand up for what’s right, contact their alderpersons and urge them to vote against any override. And every City Council member must stand behind the low-paid, frontline working women in Chicago and make sure the phase-out of the subminimum wage for tipped workers continues unimpeded.

Cherita Ellens, president and CEO, Women Employed

Coffee talk

The price of coffee has risen significantly in the last year, and those increases are mostly due to tariffs. Donald Trump claims tariffs are paid by foreign countries and will bring manufacturing jobs to the U.S. Well, tariffs are definitely paid by the U.S. consumer, and I can’t quite see how coffee beans can be grown in America. Maybe I’ll start delivering my empty coffee cans to the White House, and the current resident will get the message.

Mike Sienkowski, Tinley Park

Praise for nurses

In 2024, I was hospitalized at the University of Illinois Hospital several times for back surgery and other physical problems that followed. I had the best care from all the staff, especially from the nurses who take their profession seriously. My nurses went out of their way to make sure I was comfortable and taken care of. I love nurses, as we all should. It's a hard job.

Gail Gartelos, Bridgeport