It’s pretty obvious we don’t take drunk-driving seriously enough in this country. We have our clever ads on TV. We have dedicated citizens that have suffered the ultimate loss–the loss of a loved one–trying to tell their stories of pain so other people don’t have to experience it. Here in Illinois, we lowered the blood-alcohol level in recent years to try and prevent drunk driving.

But when it reaches the courts, something strange happens. Apparently it’s just not viewed as that terrible a crime. Consider the case of former Tigers pitcher Lary Sorensen, and this story that crossed the wire.

It was 3:12 a.m. Saturday when Roseville, Mich., police officer Brian Dobrzycki approached a gray 1998 Ford parked on the shoulder of Interstate 696 near I-94, a man slumped unmoving over the steering wheel.

Dobrzycki hammered on the windows and the windshield to no avail, then called emergency medical services. Moments after they arrived, the man stirred. He eventually was able to unlock his door.

Dobrzycki identified him: ex-Brewers All-Star pitcher and Tigers announcer Lary Sorensen. He was dead drunk — nearly literally so.

“I’m just happy he’s not dead and he didn’t kill someone else,” said talk-show host Frank Beckmann, who was Sorensen’s broadcast partner in the Tigers’ booth in the 1990s. “This whole story is just a tragedy.”

Sorensen, 52, was rushed to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with alcohol poisoning. Tests determined his blood-alcohol level to be 0.48 — six times higher than the 0.08 threshold for drunken-driving convictions in Michigan.

The arrest was Sorensen’s seventh drunken-driving incident, and he still is on parole from his sixth offense. He was sent Thursday from the Macomb County Jail to a state prison in Jackson, where his case was to be heard by a parole board.

My question– How does someone even get to three DUIs and not do jail time? Good lawyers? And how does one keep their license after 2 or 3 or 4 DUIs? Sorensen was actually released on parole in June 2006 after completing about 14 months of a 20-month sentence. That was after his 6th DUI. It will be interesting to see what happens this time. Maybe we’ll hear his lawyer talk about how he made a ‘mistake’.