I ask members to express theirs feelings on drinking and driving, truly is road safety something a lot of people try to avoid assuming responsibilities for? I would love to hear all of your personal stories about yourselfs or someone you know that was affected by drinking and driving, be sincere in your answers
When I was in college in the early 1960s, three of my friends killed themselves in drunk driving crashes. I never got the details so I don't know if they also killed or injured others.
I've never been much of a fan of alcohol. These days I seldom have more than two beers in an evening. If my band is playing and we start loading in at 7:30pm and we finish loading out at 2:30am, well okay maybe three.
When I was younger I occasionally had four, and there were a couple of times that I drove home and didn't feel comfortable doing it, but continued anyway. I drove slowly, took back roads and was probably driving more safely than most of the people on the road at that hour. I certainly wasn't racing and yelling "whoopee." But I made a point to not do it again.
I've known several people who were true alcoholics and drove home after drinking more liquor than I keep in my house. I rode home with one once, without realizing what I was doing until too late. He drove just fine, was very attentive and responsible. I'm sure his reaction time was impaired but he drove better than my mother ever did at her best.
I've been told that my experience was representative, that it's not really people like that who cause most of the accidents. They've been driving drunk for years and they've gotten good at it. It's the average person who gets carried away one night and drinks too much without realizing it.
But it's especially teenagers or very young adults. Teenagers think they're invincible, immortal hot-shots when they're sober; when they get drunk they think they're Batman--and they're less likely to buckle up. It seems like all the big drunk driving crashes I read about in the paper, the ones where a car literally sails off the road into a tree at 80mph and two or three people die, are teenage drivers.
And I have read more than once that using a cellphone while driving is about as dangerous as having three drinks. The same is true of other distractions such as putting on makeup, swapping out a CD, reading a map, farting around with a baby in the back seat, and
eating.
One comedian said that eating while driving is worse than driving drunk. "Drunks are at least
trying to drive. People who are eating only want the sugar."
