Please, just give up the keys. Please.

As someone who admittedly was an idiot a time or two in my late teens and feel fortunate to have lived through it, I can only applaud what Rosie said and totally agree.

Be smart this time and make sure you get a chance to be smart again.

 

so you're saying nobody should ever drink?

 

Nah.

Just 1 year in jail and suspended license for ANY AND EVERY DUI. Zero exceptions.

Tired of playing Russian Roulette on the highways, where a 9/11 death total is realized every six weeks.

 

the handful of times i have been drunk, i've made sure a friend hid my keys before i started drinking. i wish everyone would just do that.

 

In years of covering courts, drunk driving deaths are about the most senseless I've ever seen.

The victims are so random and arbitrary. 99.9 percent of the time they weren't involved in some activity that brought their fate on themselves - unlike shootings and stabbings, etc.

Some of the sentencing hearings were so heart wrenching I had to do everything I could not to cry right there in the courtroom.

I saw a guy who lost his wife and two daughters to a drunk driver. He and his other daughter were at ballet practice when his wife's car was struck by a dd. Now it's just him and his daughter.

I've seen a couple where there were two kids properly restrained in the back seat. DD hits one side, killing one kid and sparing the other. It's horrible to watch those children in the courtroom. Absolutely horrible. One 5-year-old boy was pressed up against his dead sister, waiting for EMS to cut them out of the car.

And the drunk driver survives, more often than not.

 

When I was in college, I lost two friends from high school to drunk driving accidents. One was studying to be a youth minister and had the gift of being able to relate to kids and the passion of his beliefs. An idiot took an off-ramp on to the highway, hit my friend's car head on and both cars blew up in flames.

The second was still in high school or his first year of junior college. The drunk survived, my friend did not.

I can truthfully say I have driven when I shouldn't have in the past. But that won't happen any more. It has been since mid-April since I've had a beer. And I don't see that changing. I was not and am not an alcoholic, rarely drank more than two beers anymore... I just decided to call it quits.

 

Do more than "strongly consider" it, FT. Do it.

When I was a senior in high school, I was invited to another high school's prom. Turns out, the girl who invited me just wanted a body and completely ignored me the whole time.

Afterward, we went to this party, where as the cold shoulder got frostier, I got more hammered. Finally, I had enough -- only to have that dim realization that I had to drive 10 miles back home and I really wasn't sure where I was.

I headed east until I saw a familiar street that was an exit onto I-10. I got on I-10 and followed the lane markers. That's the only way I kept it together -- all the while vowing to myself that if I got home in one piece or without being arrested, I would never do this again.

As I drove, the haze lifted enough to permit some semblance of focus. But thank God I got home without killing myself, anyone else or getting stopped. Like Moddy, my dad would have taken me apart for this. And rightfully so.

It remains the most stupid thing I've ever done in 43 years on this planet.

 

I'm also considering sleeping in a motel overnight.

One thing is dead certain. I'm NOT going to be driving drunk tomorrow. No way. No how.

 

I'd propose one year in jail and one year revoked license for the first offense. Then two years in jail and three years revoked license for the second offense. For the third, 10 years in jail and permanently revoked license.

 

And as well-meaning as that sounds, it is not practical. You would have people trampling each other in the prisons.

 

I was out at a bar one time and I had way to much to even think about driving. The husband of one of my bosses comes up and gives me a huge bearhug and as I was trying to find my keys I realized that he took them from my coat pocket.
I lived like three miles from the bar and he was sitting in the drivers seat of my car waiting for me when I closed out my tab. I thanked him probably 30 times the following day for not letting me drive home.

 

The funeral for my friend's relative is today. If you have a moment, please send good thoughts and prayers their way. He was 23 and enrolled to start medical school this fall.

What a waste. What a loss.

I would also like to thank all of you who've shared stories so far. I know many of us have made some dumb mistakes, the trick is to make sure not to repeat them.

And those of you who have done what you could to prevent someone from driving drunk? I love you. I know it's hard sometimes, I've been called every dirty name in the book for taking keys -- I even went in one woman's purse and took her keys one time.

Keep fighting the good fight.