Drinking and Driving.

[Gregg]

I was reading in the football forums that the NFLPA has a hotline where players can call to get rides if they have been drinking.

I know back in the day (and yes things have changed a bit) I very seldom let someone else drive me when I had been drinking. Usually because I could handle it better than the guys that I was actually drinking with. The idea of a designated driver had not yet come up. I no longer drink so I can honestly say that I do not know what I would do today. It is not a matter of drinking and driving, it is a matter of drinking too much and driving. Laws allow for some drinking and driving, just not too much. So I am pretty sure that I would in fact drink and drive. My issue would be would I know where to draw the line. My old history would say no.

So what about you guys. What do you do? In the last year have you had some drinks and drove? Have any of you had some drinks, felt you were not drunk, but called a cab or had someone else drive you? At anytime did you drive drunk?

Honestly, I do not think I would call anyone. It is good that I do not drink. I am blessed not to have hurt anyone when I did.

I am not judging. I am just curious on if/how things have changed.

[dslaw]

Sometimes I feel I am lucky to be alive after all the drinking/driving I did as a teenager. But at 18 I was invincible and the fact that we went straight when the road curved and there just happened to be a dirt road we hit at 40 mph just proved it. Now the wife and I will go to a wine tasting dinner and one will order the wine while the other will take just a mouthful of each glass and be the driver. I haven't been over the legal BAC while driving in a long time, like 20 years long time. When I see things like the NFL guy or some Joe Schmoe locally that killed someone while driving drunk I think they should be charged with manslaughter. There is just no sense in taking that kind of a chance.

The hard part was trying to convince my kid that if he ever couldn't drive or was stuck at a place where someone wouldn't give him keys that he should call me, anytime of the day or night. Luckily he isn't a big drinker and I don't think he was ever in that position. I know my parents gave me the same talk but I ignored them.

[Erik]

If I am out by myself and gone at least 4 hours, I will have no more than three beers, and will not have any hard liquor. I should have followed this rule when I was younger but I didn't always. I never got behind the wheel when I was really sloppy drunk, but I certainly did when I was borderline.

If I am out with my wife, I drink whatever I want, because she doesn't drink. :o

[Fresno Bob]

I live in a city that is sweet for walking or taking cabs or public transit, when I travel for work, I never rent a car so I can drink plenty...

[joncarlos]

Sorry, ElD, I don't see it as overblown.

Driving around under the influence increases the odds of you injuring or killing someone. That needs to be penalized. If you were waving a gun around in public, even if there was only a 1% chance that it would actually injure someone, the police would certainly have something to say about it.

DUI laws are actually pretty lenient in the US, compared to the rest of the world. Land of the free and all that. But if you get behind the wheel after having a few drinks and you kill someone, Lucky is right, that's manslaughter, and you should have a few years of "free" time to think about it.

Does that mean that everyone who has one drink and then drives should go to jail? Well, no, but if you are doing something dangerous enough to draw the cops' attention then they should pull you over and arrest you if you're over the limit. Just like speeding, or talking on your phone, or putting on makeup, or eating a bagel, or whatever, if you're a danger to yourself or others, someone should intervene. (and in the case of speeding and cell phones, that intervention should involve arrest if you're breaking a law)

I'm relatively careful about how much I drink when I'm driving, and I won't drink AT ALL when I'm driving and my daughter is in the backseat. Like almost everyone else, I've driven plenty of times when I shouldn't have, mostly when I was young and stupid.

[griswold]

Sometimes I feel I am lucky to be alive after all the drinking/driving I did as a teenager. But at 18 I was invincible and the fact that we went straight when the road curved and there just happened to be a dirt road we hit at 40 mph just proved it. Now the wife and I will go to a wine tasting dinner and one will order the wine while the other will take just a mouthful of each glass and be the driver. I haven't been over the legal BAC while driving in a long time, like 20 years long time. When I see things like the NFL guy or some Joe Schmoe locally that killed someone while driving drunk I think they should be charged with manslaughter. There is just no sense in taking that kind of a chance.

The hard part was trying to convince my kid that if he ever couldn't drive or was stuck at a place where someone wouldn't give him keys that he should call me, anytime of the day or night. Luckily he isn't a big drinker and I don't think he was ever in that position. I know my parents gave me the same talk but I ignored them.

I have to say that dslaw said most of what I was going to say here.

But, honestly, I have to admit that I still do this....I have driven home numerous times way too drunk to be driving. I know it's wrong, stupid and every other word that correlates here.

I wish I could could "grow up" and not do this but since cabs and public transit are NOT the norm in Canton Ohio....it's easier for me to drive. Now, I'm smart enough to take the back roads that I'm familiar with in order to avoid traffic and cops, so that helps. But, I wish I could do a better job of not doing this. I only get drunk, maybe 3-5 times per year....so it's not like I'm doing this every week. But still I know it's wrong.

Hey, just my confession.

Gris

[overkill94]

It used to be much easier when I lived close to Santa Monica and I could either walk to bars or split a $15 cab ride each way with a few other people. Nowadays I'm a solid $30-40 cab ride away and it's only my girlfriend and I (translation: I'm paying for the whole cab ride). Don't even get me started about getting to Hollywood or downtown...

So, I've become pretty good at knowing how much I can drink and still be a safe driver. Maybe not under the limit but sober enough to drive carefully and not arouse suspicion. There have been a few times where I woke up the next morning a bit freaked out because I definitely shouldn't have driven the night before, but I really try to avoid those.

[Bob Kohm]

Speaking as someone who has lost a close family member (my cousin, on Christmas Eve 1980) to a drunk and almost lost my wife and unborn oldest son to another, f_uck you, ElD.

[swampdragon]

I don't drive drunk but I also don't get drunk. I am not sure why anyone especially an adult would need/want to drink to get drunk. I might have 2 or maybe 3 glasses of wine at a meal but that is about it.

I think we all agree that drinking and driving is stupid, irresponsible, etc. but ElD does raise a legit point.

How many alcohol related accidents/deaths are there in proportion to other accidents? Is it a huge factor? What about human stupidity, bad luck, texting, phones, or other distractiosn. I don't know

[Gregg]

It is not about drinking. It is about drinking and driving. No one wants to take away a right to drink as much as they want. The problem as noted by some of our most honest posters is sometimes when we have had more than enough we think we are ok to drive. The fact that I got away with it lots of times does not mean it is ok.

By the way texting is illegal too. A young man that used to work for me was killed a couple of months ago by someone who was texting. He leaves behind a wife and 4 kids.

My cousing was killed by a driver stoned out of their mind on pot. They spaced out, drove over the line and hit him head on. He left behind a wife and 3 year old.

My personal opinion is that all cars have the blow machine. Everyone has to blow to start their car. If it is above the legal limit car won't start.

[nots]

Easily the most overrated of all crimes. Real research, not the biased and baseless garbage that MADD shoves down our throats, shows that drunk driving is a much, much smaller problem than all the hysterical mothers and politicians and judges up for reelection would lead us to believe.

There's no way you would feel like this if someone you love was killed by a drunk driver. No chance, no how, no way.
Mothers, who had to bury a child, acting 'hysterically' and then spending the rest of their lives on a crusade to prevent others from going thru the same thing--you can't understand where that's coming from?
Maybe you should ask Santa to put a little empathy in your stocking this Christmas.

[Bob Kohm]

Oh, and why's that? Sorry for your loss and f*ck you too, tough guy.

Why's that? Because some stupid, selfish ******* in a Lincoln crossed over a Brooklyn median planted with shrubs and took out my cousin's VW head on at 11:30 on Christmas Eve. Why's that? Because the day after Thanksgiving 2003-- in the middle of the afternoon-- two drunken *******s who I'm sure thought they were fine crossed a double yellow line in a curve while coming at my car, which I was driving with my 29 week pregnant wife sitting next to me. Luckily I saw them coming and managed to turn the car just enough to take the hit on my side of the car rather than having their Toyota Tundra hit us head on. Even so, my wife broke ribs, went into labor and had the docs terrified that she had a placental abruption. I broke three ribs and somehow managed not to be cut open by the sheet metal that folded in from the outside of the door. Better was when, after getting Beth out of the car (I thought it was on fire-- turned out it was the pickup that was on fire), the driver of the pickup runs up to me, grabs my shirt and starts screaming "No Policia! No Policia!" while his buddy is too drunk to get out of a burning truck (bystanders unwisely risked their lives to pull him out). They hit us hard enough that my car (thank god it was a Volvo) was ripped open from the driver's side front wheel well to the back door. The frame rail broke so that when I saw the car a few days later in the salvage yard it was literally opened up like a book.

So yeah, fuc_k you and fuc_k your uninformed, ass backward, idiotic attitude about drinking and driving.

[rhd]

The US is a place where everyone drives, and most people drink. So probably most people drink and drive at one time or another, even if it's just 1-2 drinks. We have a drinking and driving culture. Orgs like MADD and SADD have raised consciousness about this issue, but the basic fact remains that Americans really arent that serious about stopping drunk driving. Unlike in some European countries where if you're caught drinking and driving ONCE, you lose your license FOR LIFE. Now that's being SERIOUS. Of course, those countries probably have more public transportation than we have here. Dont know what the legal limit is in those countries.

Having worked in the legal profession for a few years, I know first hand how the courts treat drunk driving violations. First violation = probation and counseling (plus the lawyer's fees - that's part of the punishment!). 2nd violation = typically some jail time, like 30-60 days, but a good lawyer often can get you off. Also, if the offender has a job a lot of times the sentences can be served on weekends. Is this being serious about drunk driving? Arguably not. When I clerked for a judge I remember a day where the afternoon docket featured a bunch of drunk driving cases where the above formulas were applied, then we held a birthday party for the judge (in the courtroom), where many different types of alcohol were featured, including hard liquor. How many of those drinkers drove home? Probably most of them. Such is the culture we live in.

Personally, I drink sparingly, but I practically never drink in public. I usually order cranberry juice. The rare times when I drink in public, I limit myself to 1 drink. Like most people, I wasnt quite as conscientious when I was younger.

[B-Fly]

I think the problem is that we all like to think of ourselves as good people who would never intentionally put the lives of our loved ones or strangers at risk, and yet we've probably all engaged in impaired or distracted driving multiple times over the course of our lives, so there's a cognitive dissonance on this issue. I think we have to admit that there are serious life risks that go along with driving no matter how careful we are. But we also have to admit that any kind of impaired or distracted driving can substantially increase those risks. We should certainly be conscious of that fact and make our very best efforts to avoid engaging in distracted or impaired driving. I don't think a fight about whose statistics are the most sound should change our moral calculus on the issue. We don't need to agree on the exact magnitude of the risk to acknowledge that it's a risk that we should all make every effort to minimize.

[In the Corn]

Gregg, great topic. I'm not much of a drinker, but I refuse to take risks because there is too much at stake.

This summer I was out golfing with my best friend. We had three beers late in the round, and I was buzzed. Could I have driven home, most likely. I remembering thinking I'm sure I can drive, but why risk it. Get some lunch and I'll be fine in an hour.

I recently was at 2 wine tasting and had the equivalent of two glasses of wine over 2+ hours and knew I was fine to drive.

Recently, we visited my son and his fiancee in Boston, we went out one night and I enjoyed the evening, but we had a designated driver.

As an adult, getting sloppy drunk has no interest for me. Enjoy a drink or two, but know your limits and have a plan for driving.

I wouldn't have any issue with the blowing machine in cars, perhaps insurance agencies will decide they don't like the risk and will mandate them for consumers, or offer discounts for those who have them installed.