Hi, I'm Connie Chung, tonight on Eye to Eye.
The worst thing I've ever seen in my life.
A family wiped out by a driver who hadn't had a license since 1967.
When I found out, I thought, who is the law protecting?
How do unlicensed drivers get away with it again and again?
This just sits in the file.
We'll show you how.
I'll sit here forever, yes.
The police, prosecutors, and the courts really don't get it.
And while officials point fingers.
It's always horrible.
Get out of the way.
Sometimes I just don't even think about it, and sometimes I'm really scared.
It's a family curse.
It's awful. I mean, it beats you from the inside out.
And now, a breakthrough test will tell his three children which one of them is next.
What I'm going to give you today is the result of the gene test.
Would you want to look into your crystal ball?
We ran the results and ran them twice, and we're pretty sure about this.
It's a jungle out there.
Big bucks are on the line. Big bucks.
Tonight, the Disney King takes on the Lion King.
Is it great? It's got to be.
From the drawing boards to the big screen.
And this will all be mine?
An Eye to Eye exclusive.
And three people.
Those stories. And remember your first time?
You'll see William F. Buckley's first time tonight on Eye to Eye.
It's Eye to Eye with Connie Child, with correspondents Bernard Goldberg, Edie Magnus, Russ Mitchell, Roberta Baskin, and Bill Lagatuda.
Good evening. They are a menace to society, and yet they're running around free, running into their innocent victims with deadly results.
Unlicensed drivers are driving the cops crazy.
The police know who they are, but they can't seem to do anything about it.
As Russ Mitchell reports, even when laws are passed, it's not what's on the books, it's what's on the roads.
Connie, it's a problem across the country.
Here in New York, lawmakers and the cops have promised to crack down, but the killing continues.
Another tragedy came just this week.
A 35-year-old Queens man was killed by an unlicensed driver.
Both toddlers had evidently taken the brunt of the impact, four people and killing a four-year-old boy.
Three members of a family to be wiped out.
A York College professor was killed by an unlicensed driver.
She knew her two-year-old was dead.
It happened again on Tuesday.
A van slammed into a woman and her four-year-old daughter as they crossed a Brooklyn street.
She had the baby in one hand and she had to go sit in the other hand, and the next thing I know she was facing down.
The van kept going.
Donna Blanchard and her daughter Michelle died.
Donna's husband got the call at work.
It's not an accident, it's a crime.
What makes it a crime is that many of the drivers who are killing people in New York don't even have a license.
A year ago, lawmakers promised a crackdown.
But has it made any difference?
Ask Joanne Baccarello.
Even though we have tough laws, I don't think it's enough.
On the night of May 1st, Joanne was leaving a big family party when she heard the screams.
That's when we saw bodies flying in the air.
The worst thing I've ever seen in my life.
Dominic Chieca was there too.
Did you realize that these were your relatives?
No, not immediately.
I guess in a situation like that, you choose to think it's somebody else.
But it wasn't someone else.
It was his aunt and uncle, John and Kathy, and cousins Maria and Conchetta,
crossing the street right into the path of a speeding car with no headlights.
As it ran through a stoplight, only the father, John Baccarello, survived.
The driver, Abraham Myers, had been drinking, but more infuriating for the family
and embarrassing for police was this.
Myers' driver's license expired in 1967.
Since then, he's accumulated 26 suspensions on a license he doesn't even have.
When I found out that he was driving without a license for 30 years,
I thought, who is the law protecting?
That's what the family of college professor Don Nguyen is wondering.
He was killed May 17th.
The Soto family lost Jesus a week later.
All this despite the Scalf Law Driving Act of 1993,
called the toughest law of its kind in the country.
It makes driving with a suspended license a crime, punishable with fines and jail time.
They can even take away your car.
This is a tough law.
Brooklyn Assemblyman Joe Lentol wrote the law.
Is it working?
Unfortunately, it is not working.
The police and the courts, as well as the prosecutors, aren't enforcing this tough law.
In particular, you have a suspension on a license,
you have to clear that up first before you can get a permit.
Enforcement is a daunting task.
The New York Department of Motor Vehicles keeps millions of records.
In the last two years, nearly 6,500 New York City drivers
have had their licenses suspended at least 20 times.
This driver has 600 license suspensions.
How can one driver receive so many suspensions?
Take a look at what eye to eye found.
Disorderly conduct, unlawful possession of marijuana, unlicensed driver.
Senior Court Clerk Tom Dobies took us to the basement of Bronx Criminal Court,
where old summonses dating back to 1980 are gathering dust.
There's over a million summonses laying around, and in every borough, including mine,
they just go in the drawer and lay there.
If you get caught driving without a license in New York,
and you don't show up for your court date, your summons could end up here.
So if this man does not show up, this just sits in the file, and that's it?
And I'll sit here forever, yes. That's exactly what will happen.
What's the incentive to show up?
There is none.
Criminal court officials say that's all going to change.
They tell us from now on, if an unlicensed driver ignores his summons,
they'll issue a warrant for his arrest.
Good evening, sir. I see a license, registration, insurance card, please.
But out on the streets, repeat offenders continue to fall through the cracks.
You don't have a license.
Thousands of tickets are issued by police who are often unable to check a driver's history,
because not all of them have computers in their cruisers.
Police officers day after day will be giving summonses to these guys for driving unlicensed,
until they kill somebody, then they'll be arrested,
and then they'll say, oh, this guy had 20 summonses for driving without a license,
then something being done.
What you got? You get a summons for unlicensed for having no license.
In your opinion, how big of a problem are unlicensed drivers?
A more significant problem.
William Bratt is New York City's new police commissioner.
There are far too many people in this city right now without licenses.
The law enforcement community has to catch up.
He says you guys aren't doing the job.
No, I tell him he's full of bull. I tell him he's full of bull.
We're doing our job. We'll all do our job. I'm not going to take that crap from anybody.
I've done my job. We can make the law tougher,
when and if law enforcement decides to enforce the law that's on the books.
It's an outrageous assertion.
They're not going to pass the buck back to us. We'll do our fair share.
The police are saying they're doing it the best they can,
and it's not their fault. It's the judicial system's fault.
The judicial system says that there's not enough laws,
so we're going around in circles.
Do more people have to die before something is done?
More people, unfortunately, are going to die.
It's the real world we live in.
We'll do the best we can. We'll do all we can to reduce the certainty.
But when you have people out there who have a wanton disregard for any of the laws we pass,
that's why the idea is put them in jail.
Put them in jail and forget about them.
In the meantime, families like the Vacarellos are what reckless drivers,
unlicensed to kill, leave behind.
Took away a doctor, took away a teacher, took away a great mother.
As far as I'm concerned, this was a preventable tragedy.
I think that's dissatisfying.
The man arrested in the Vacarello case, Abraham Myers, has pleaded not guilty.
And what about other states, Russ?
California just passed a bill that allows the cops to impound your car
if you're driving without a license.
In Ohio, a computer system has been set up to prevent those with suspended licenses
from renewing their car registration.
And in Oregon and Washington, drivers who have had their licenses either suspended
or revoked will have their cars marked so police can be on the lookout.
Thank you, Russ.
Next, the Himes kids are about to take the toughest test of their lives.
The risk of having cancer if you have this gene is essentially 100 percent.
Would you want to know, and still ahead, who will be the next king of the jungle?
I will be king!
But as you'll see in our exclusive report,
it took a lot of growling before the Lion King could roar.
This is so weird.
You have no idea.
Today, if you want to know your future, don't go to a fortune teller.
Go to a doctor.
Every week it seems there's a breakthrough
as scientists discover a gene for another disease.
Last week it was asthma and allergies.
Soon it will be breast cancer.