When news broke of the driving under the influence arrest of Roy Meyer, director of the Office of Highway Safety for the state of South Dakota, and his subsequent resignation a few days later, it was one of those stories that makes us shake our heads and say, "We couldn't make this stuff up."

Meyer was arrested on Oct. 23 in Pierre and resigned his position with state government effective Oct. 29.

But for all the bad-joke irony implicit in an official who was in charge of reducing the number of traffic crashes, injuries and fatalities on state highways being arrested on charges of drunken driving, it is no laughing matter.

As Tom Dravland, secretary of the Department of Public Safety, said, "We're held to a higher standard. This is a disappointing situation."

It is especially disappointing because it highlights, at a shockingly high level of state government, a societal acceptance toward drinking and driving that persists in the attitudes of far too many South Dakotans.

Traffic fatalities and injuries in South Dakota caused by alcohol-related crashes offer tragic proof of that.

In 2006, almost 40 percent of the state's traffic fatalities (72 of 191) were in alcohol-related crashes and 14 of those deaths were of young people under the age of 20. Alcohol-related crashes injured 854 people in South Dakota last year.

Those numbers suggest, as Rapid City Police Chief Steve Allender told the Journal recently, that there is still some level of tolerance of drunk driving.

"Our worst road block in the fight against drunk driving is the apparent social acceptance of it. We have to ask the public to stop taking this lying down," Allender said.

A two-officer DUI task force recently implemented by the RCPD is a good starting point. Allowing officers to focus solely on drunk-driving traffic stops during a shift helps send the message that it won't be tolerated in Rapid City. Stiff fines and stiffer penalties, in terms of loss of driving privileges and mandatory jail time, are necessary to send a clear and consistent message that drunk driving is not acceptable in South Dakota.

But in the end, there must be a change in social attitudes that begins with families and friends sending the same message: Drinking and driving do not mix.