Please, just give up the keys. Please.

I'm pleading and pleading.

Maybe this post should have been made before the holiday weekend. Maybe this should be an ongoing begging and nagging thing. Maybe I'll sound like a PSA for the cop shop. Maybe I'm just feeling old today.

I don't care at this point.

If you're going to drink, for the love of all that is holy and good, to do the right thing, don't get behind the wheel. Give up the keys, if your friend thinks he or she can drive, do everything you can to take the keys away -- even if you have to place a solid right cross.

I have the afternoon off before returning to work, so I get home and read through the couple online sites and I've just had it up to my eyeballs with "the driver has been charged with driving under the influence."

An 11-year-old boy who was on his bicycle in critical condition after being hit by a suspected drunk driver.

A guy charged with driving a golf cart while drunk -- a passenger died after falling off the cart.

A pedestrian hit and killed by a suspected drunk driver, a driver who had children in his vehicle.

The last one hit really hard. I didn't know the kid who died, but the day after it happened I got an email from a friend in another state (who I'll be seeing in two weeks) asking me for info about the accident. It was her cousin's son that was killed. We've traded countless emails in the last few days, me sending the links for info, her giving me updates on how the family is holding up -- maintaining, barely.

It's an old rant, one that probably falls on deaf ears since it's preached and shouted and screamed so much.

But please. If you're going to drink, drink.

Just don't drive any motorized vehicle of any sort.

Please.

Rant over. You may now return to your regularly scheduled SportsJournalists.com.

 

I'm planning to get shit faced for my 35th birthday Thursday.

I'm strongly considering taking public transportation to the bar and then taking a cab home.

 

You should never have to drive to your birthday celebration, and that's the reason.

 

DUI's should carry more punishment. A night in the drunk tank and losing your license (but still conditionally being allowed to use it for work) isn't enough, even for a first-time offense.

Speaking from experience, young people don't think about the worst-case scenario when they drive drunk or get in the car with someone who's drunk.

I got into a car with a trashed friend when I was 16. My only thought was, if I die, so what? Never thought about us killing someone else.

Same thing when I was in my early 20s. Driving home, my only thought was 'I'm sober enough to drive, or at least fake it." Again, never thought about what if I killed someone else.

People need to think about that, because if you do kill someone, it's all you'll think about.

I consider myself lucky I didn't hit anyone.

 

Wise move...

 

Especially considering my other alternative is to spend the night at a hotel. But even so, drinking and driving is so not worth it.

 

Rosie, that's a great post. As someone who doesn't drink and was therefore the DD all the time in college, this is something that I feel strongly about. I'm lucky that I haven't been personally affected by this, but it happens all the time. There's just no excuse to drink and drive. None at all.

 

I've had to personally sit on someone and hold them down to keep them from getting behind the wheel and driving off drunk.

He was one of my best friends; still is. But that night he hated me with every fiber of his being because I wouldn't let him leave a party to go fuck around with some chick he just met.

I wound up spending the night at that house just so my buddy wouldn't go out and do anything stupid.

Oh, and there was the Carrollton bus crash in 1988. Worst drunk-driving accident involving a school bus.

My uncle was a teacher and about 50 of those kids on that bus were students of his.

A little background on my uncle: He's manic depressant and his issues when he gets off his meds. One night about five years ago (near the 15th anniversary of the wreck) we were talking about the it and he told me there have been times when he's been able to feel flames from the fire on his body and hear the screams of everyone trying to get off the bus in time.

Freaks me out to this day.

 

I've roomed with my best friend at school the past two years. We've been in one serious fight and it was over this issue. We've held many parties in our apartment and our one rule is that no one drives home (which usually isn't too hard since most people within walking distance). In fact, he's even more adamant about it than me.

So two years ago on the day of our big rivalry game he started drinking at like 10 in the morning and continued through the day and into the night when we had a party at our place. Everyone was having a good time and around midnight I go up to the room we shared and he was in there with our other best friend. I came in and he said: "We're driving to Montreal." Since it's about a 5 hour drive and it was the middle of the night I figured he was joking.

What he had never told me before was that that was the anniversary of the night his sister was killed in a car accident. The copious amounts of alcohol and those memories got to him and he decided he needed to go with our other friend to Montreal (it's one of his favorite cities in the world and I think also had something to do with her death, I've never gotten all the details out of him).

He was well beyond any chance of being able to drive without crashing. The girl he was going with was better but still well over the legal limit. When I saw them start to print mapquest directions I flipped out and yelled at them and when it was clear they wouldn't listen I took his keys. He tried to coax them off me but there was no way I was budging. Unfortunately, her car was also at our apt and I couldn't get to her purse before they started leaving.

The party continued downstairs and most people had no idea what was happening. A few others, though, had found out and started to help. However, none of them really took my friends seriously. I, on the other hand, know that my roommate has very strong convictions and usually means what he says. So while everyone else just tried to talk sense into them, I tried blocking the doorway. For my trouble I was slapped in the face by the girl and pushed out of the way by my buddy and out the door they went. I still wish I had been more persistent, but as they walked out the door I fell to the ground crying, thinking that two of my best friends could very well die in a car accident that night and take others with them.

I retreated to my room with my other friends that knew what happened and they tried to tell me that they weren't actually going to go through with it. I knew better and my biggest worry more than the alcohol was that they would fall asleep at the wheel. My phone didn't get service in my apt. that year and so I took one of my friends phones and called them every 15 minutes for the next 4 hours to make sure they were still awake. They somehow made it through customs and ended up stopping an hour outside of Montreal and sleeping at a hotel and them coming back the next morning.

It was the dumbest decision I've ever seen anyone make and they were lucky nothing happened. I still kick myself for not calling the town police and getting them arrested to make sure they didn't make it far. If anything would have happened to them that night I would have felt responsible since I was much more sober than them. Despite sharing a room, I didn't say a word to my buddy for the next week. We're fine now but thinking back to that still angers me.

 

Great story, dre. And great thread, Rosie.