Becky Gage warns students of the dangers of mixing cars and alcohol. She talks about teens who get drunk and kill people, then waste their lives in prison.

A 45-year-old Tampa woman, Doris M. Laun, died in this April 20, 1999 crash at Sligh Avenue and Orient road. Her boyfriend, David Wayne Crawford, was driving drunk on a suspended license when he veered into the path of an oncoming sheriff's car. PHIL SHEFFIELD/Tribune photo

Hands raise. Future drivers say stuff like this:

``If I got drunk and killed somebody, I'd leave.''

That's the lesson Florida law teaches motorists, even before they're licensed: If you're at fault in a drunken-driving crash, flee the scene and sober up.

Their textbook might as well be the Florida Statutes, where the penal code lets hit-and-run drivers off without prison, while slamming the door on killer drunks for 14 to 15 years.

``We have a responsibility to take care of each other,'' says Sgt. Tom Przybylowicz of the Florida Highway Patrol in Bradenton.

``We're not doing that. Unfortunately, the courts are letting people not do it. They're actually encouraging them to commit the crimes and not be responsible for their actions.''

Some prosecutors and judges say the Legislature should raise the stakes, insisting that hit-and-run drivers be penalized as if they're guilty of driving drunk and causing a crash, eliminating the incentive to leave.

``You really need to make not doing the right thing a greater burden down the road than doing the right thing up front, even if you were wrong to begin with,'' says Pinellas County Judge Patrick Caddell.

Gage concurs. She works in the Tampa office of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and sees the anguish caused by those who kill and vanish.

``Word has gotten out that they're better off to flee,'' Gage says.

``Maybe it would get out that they're better off to stay.''

In Florida, a DUI death case and hit-and-run death case share equal billing as second-degree felonies, each punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

But the two crimes aren't equal in court.

Judges use a point system, part of the Florida Statutes, to compute the minimum sentence permitted by law.

The law sorts felonies into 10 levels of severity, from Level 1 counterfeiting of a lottery ticket to Level 10 treason against the state.

DUI manslaughter shares Level 8 with sexual battery and explosions of occupied buildings, offenses with enough points to require prison.

Fleeing a fatal crash scene, Level 6, ranks with cloning cell phones. The points don't call for prison.

Abusing a dead body, Level 7, costs more than abandoning a dying human.

``The merely bleeding and dying don't have much of a lobby,'' Caddell says. ``It's one of the glaring weaknesses of justice by math.''

The law gives judges leeway to dish out stiffer penalties, but most adhere to the guidelines.

The scoring scheme was devised for fairness, and it penalizes felons for prior convictions. But even someone with three prior DUI charges who flees a scene wouldn't, under the formula, merit prison.

Caddell doubts inebriated drivers mull over sentencing guidelines before deciding to leave.

Still, he figures, word gets out.

``There's a lot of things we do and don't do because society says there's going to be a penalty if you don't comply,'' he says.

Last year, in the five-county Tampa Bay area, motorists did what some find unimaginable: They turned their backs on 460 dying or seriously injured victims.

There were fewer deaths but more injuries compared to 1997, when 52 men, women and children were left to die, a record high in recent years.

``My God,'' says Caddell. ``That's an incredible number. You wonder who could do that, too, don't you? If I hit a cat or a raccoon, I'd stop, much less a human.''

Young drivers flee, but so do old ones. Men and women, professionals and ex-cons, white, black, Hispanic. They kill pedestrians, bicyclists and other drivers, then claim they didn't realize it.

In September, the remains of a bicyclist were scattered for 375 feet one morning on the Florida Turnpike after he was struck at least six times. Only one driver stopped.

Earlier this month, Tampa police reported that a drunken driver fled after a Gandy Bridge crash that catapulted his injured victim into Tampa Bay.

Most who leave fatal crashes eventually get caught.

Some do themselves more harm than good, fleeing accidents that weren't their fault.

But by running, they weaken law enforcement's ability to prove a DUI charge or worse.

Police and judges hear the excuses.

Experience debunks most of them.

``Often, you'll find they were in a bar, drinking,'' says Hillsborough Circuit Judge Diana Allen. ``You can't normally get people to admit they left because they didn't want to be charged with DUI -- but that's probably the case in most instances.''

Przybylowicz says it boils down to two reasons: ``They don't care or they're drunk.''

He'd like to see the Legislature order hit-and-run drivers to pay for the burial of victims. Or, maybe, create a fine to be paid to the state victim's compensation fund.

It's all too familiar to MADD pioneer Beckie Brown of New Port Richey.

Brown, MADD's fifth national president, recalls her fight in the mid-1980s to get Florida's hit-and- run death cases turned into second-degree felonies, putting them on equal footing with DUI manslaughter.

``That was the loophole so many of the drunk drivers were using,'' she says. ``We thought raising the sanctions to be equal with DUI manslaughter, that should handle it.

``Here, I'm finding out all these years later that the judges aren't doing their job.

``That is very sad.''