Please, refrain from drunk driving...

Scayde · Post by **Scayde** » Wed Feb 26, 2003 1:51 pm

@Mah....My most heartfelt condolances to you and your students. I understand your outrage at this sensless loss.

My prayers for the families, that they may have peace and closure.

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Wed Feb 26, 2003 2:12 pm

Driving under any influence is a bad thing, in considering the fact that most drivers cant drive sober.

Mah I send my condolences and praise on the loyalty of your school brothers and sisters. Albiet if or when he returns hopefully the rage against him wont hurt anymore innocent lives. Considering a beating will never truly hurt a person of his standards. Yet his lawyers will hurt the others.

Bloodstalker · Post by **Bloodstalker** » Wed Feb 26, 2003 2:31 pm

Sorry to hear about this Mah

I have had my share of drinking in my life, but I have never climbed behind the wheel afterwards. Not because I had any inborn sense of morality, but because by the time I got to the age of drinking, I had already lost a cousin in an accident because of a drunk truck driver.

One thing I will say about driving drunk. Most people I think of that have been involved in these accident have sworn that they were either not drunk or just didn't believe it impaired their judgment. in my experience, you drink, you feel any kind of buzz, you're a danger. A buzz is an altered state. If you are feeling anything that you don't normally feel, then that is due to alcohol affecting you. Whether it's a "slight" buzz or not, the fact is, your mind is under the influence. IMO, it's like palying Russian Roulette with one round in the chamber. the vast majority of the time you might be safe, but in the end, if you keep pulling the trigger, someone is going to get hurt. I just don't think the risk is worth taking

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Wed Feb 26, 2003 2:52 pm

Chances to kill someone exist even while you're sober.
By that meter, no one should ever drive, 'cause we can't judge the harm done upon the
number of deaths.
By that meter, if you take the risk to drive, however small, you're a conscious
potential murderer.

Of course it's deprecable to drive while drunk, but we can't compare it to murder,
frankly.

Men have never been cautious.
We *know* that cars are extremely dangerous, that thousands *will* die every year, but nothing
is ever done to change it. And the whole concept of cars is criminal, IMHO.
Come on, a car can resist crashes at only about one quarter of the speed it can reach!
Wouldn't it be wiser to radically change the concept of cars?
Building them for safeness BEFORE speed? Or even start to think about a different mean to move?
We all like things this way, don't we.
We continually accept the death toll in everything we do (driving, eating, flying) thinking
always that someone else will pay it.
We can't just load *all* the guilts on the next drunken boy, if you ask me.

Bloodstalker · Post by **Bloodstalker** » Wed Feb 26, 2003 3:13 pm

I'm not, what I am saying is that drinking raises your odds of being in an accident. Not driving is for most people not an option. We have to commute for a lot of reasons, and there are hazards on the road. But when you go on the road, and you have been drinking, it increases the chances that you will at some point wind up in an accident. and that increase in risk is something you DO have power over. It isn't inherent in driving, it isn't something that you can't avoid. That increase of risk is a personal choice you make before you get behind the wheel.

As far as murder, I never said it was murder. But it is at the very least grossly negligent.

Askal · Post by **Askal** » Wed Feb 26, 2003 8:15 pm

@Scayde

No offense taken. Drinking and driving do have inherent risks and I apologise if gave anybody the impression that even moderate amounts of alcohol do not somehow impair or at least affect one's judgement.

My position was simply that from my experience I can drink the same amount of alcohol as another person with similar body type and mass and still function well within the parameters of a normal driver. This unfortunately, is not true for most people I know...so, technically, I concede the point...It's a bad idea to drink (excessively) and drive.

I think Littiz has an interesting point. Has anybody made a study to find out if eating heavily, which personally makes me sleepy, correlates to car accidents? What about heavy coffee drinkers? Assuming that caffeine affects behavior to the extent people drive more aggressively or are jumpy, should our government/s then regulate how much coffee we drink before getting behind the wheel? Is this line of discussion now considered spam?

Scayde · Post by **Scayde** » Wed Feb 26, 2003 10:28 pm

@BS:....Well said my friend

@Askal:....Thanks for the clarification.....I hope none of us inadvertantly ever say anything that would influence a young person to risk driving while intoxicated

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Thu Feb 27, 2003 7:01 am

I haven't been clear, let me try again.
Ever heard of the FAIL-SAFE concept?
It's applied, for instance, in the signaling system for trains. In Italy at least.
The point is that, if the sistem goes in failure, the semaphores all turn red by default.
Better to stop all the trains, in doubt, than let them go randomly.
This way the cost of a system fault equals the loss of the service.
People on the train are stopped and they don't reach their destination.
(That's the theory, at least).

Now take a plane. What's the cost of a system fault?
First, people don't reach their destination.
Second, the plane goes down and people die.
Planes aren't built with a FAIL-SAFE concept. Instead, they try to avoid fails at all costs.
(which is good, but not enough).

I remember a project, several years ago... A plane capable to "parachute" its central part
in case of emergency. This, at enormous costs of course, could save the people inside and
even potential victims on the ground, thanx to the added time to evacuate.
Why didn't it become the standard plane?
The costs.
Flying would become elitarian again, and we all want to be tourists, to make affairs
widely, and so.
Easier to accept the death toll, when it's "small enough".
Men want to rush into things, and will never renounce to anything that's available.
All are responsible for such accidental deaths, it's not rhetoric, it's ultimately true,
as those deaths are self-imposed by the society.

Askal · Post by **Askal** » Thu Feb 27, 2003 11:01 am

@Littiz

sorry,.. you were clear the first time but somewhere along the line I went off tangent taking your point not so much one step further but kinda sideways...

What you said about parachutes for planes reminds me of the Ford Pinto...I remember it because it was a case where an evil corporate actuarian computed the cost of a human life and figured out that it was more cost effective to pay for damages than recalling the Pinto and installing a simple device that would prevent fires caused by even minor impacts to its gas tank.

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Thu Feb 27, 2003 11:26 am

And this reminds me of a quotation from Fight Club.

From: Fight Club
If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles per hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall?
You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C).

A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall.

If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt.

If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall.

nael · Post by **nael** » Fri Feb 28, 2003 10:06 am

I too am a confessed driver who drives after havign a few drinks. I am much more dangerous the next mornign than I am that night. when you have had just a few, you are much more conscious of laws, stops signs, speed limit, etc. than when you are sober.

one fact that no one ever wants to talk about, the majority of wrecks involving a drunk driver it is the sober drivers fault by technicality of what happened in the wreck. I am not talkign about fatal wrecks, these are usually caused by soem a$$ that had way too much and is flyign through street lights and such. but it's true, think of how many near misses you may have had where a car cuts you off, pulls out into traffic, etc and you barely miss them. now you add in the reaction time deficit and you have yourself a wreck.

studies have also shown that being extremely tired is worse than being drunk, and the real kicker- being on a cell phone is worse than either.

fatal wrecks are usually caused by binge drinkers and social drinkers, not yoru every day alcoholic. I don't know what this is contributed to, but in ym opinion it has to be that the alcoholic knows his/her limit better than others. when i wroked at a bar, we had one guy who would come in every night, get drunker than hell, then go sleep in his truck for a few hours, wake up, go home, and go to work. (vice president of commercial lending at a bank).

maybe we should lower the drinking age in the US to 16 or lower and increase the driving age to 18 or higher. give people a chance to learn their limits before getting on the road.

not popular stuff i just wrote

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Fri Feb 28, 2003 11:36 am

In the United States, we live in a society that has a large element that does not like drinking. Consequently, as a culture we do not know how to drink. Many of my friends from college had never truly been around a lot of alchohol until they moved out of the house, so when they no longer had their parents looking over their shoulders, they ran wild and engaged in binge drinking because they didn't know any other way.

Rather than actually enjoying a drink, they thought that the "right" (read: socially accepted) thing to do was to get hammered on cheap beer or wine and gauged the quality of their times out based upon the length of their blackout. My folks drink and they allowed us to drink wine or beer in their presence at an early age (14 or 15). Consequently, I did not have the urge to go out and "experiment" when I got to college because it was old hat stuff to me.

This aversion to confront alchohol by our society coupled with our dependence upon cars leads to the high number of alchohol-related accidents on our nation's roads. We simply do not have a culture that knows how to educate people about drinking and driving and encourage people to take responsibility for their actions. Some communities have taken a pro-active approach, but many have not. When I lived in Jacksonville, FL, there were several clubs and bars that would waiver the cover and provide free non-alchoholic drinks to designated drivers. However, when I moved to West Virginia, to my knowledge no bars in the area have such a practise, and I live in a college town.

Our society also is averse to punishing people too harshly for DUI. For instance, my stepson and his girlfriend were out until early in the morning, had several too many (read: .28 and .22 BAL) and he ran into another car. Three people were hospitalised (he escaped injury) and his girlfriend was "lucky" to have only hit the A-piller on the car and not be ejected (which probably would have led to her death). For this DUI offense, he got his license suspended for one year and paid about $200 in fines. Do you think that this will seriously affect his future decision making? Probably not, because before this incident, DUI only happened to other people and after this incident, he'll "be more careful". There are also stories of people in the United States having multiple (in some cases more than 10) DUI convictions, but still retaining their driving privileges.

It is my opinion that DUI is the equivalent of walking through a shopping mall with a gun and firing it in random directions at random times. Sometimes the bullet will hit the floor, sometimes the ceiling and most often it won't hit anything of consequence. However, the law of averages dictates that it is only a matter of time before someone gets hit and is either wounded or killed.

A car holds the potential do to a tremendous amount of damage; the average compact car weighing 3000 pounds going 45 miles per hour will strike a pedestrian with the same amount of energy as dropping an average sized (180 pound) man from a height of 510 meters. That same car hitting a solid barrier is the equivalent of dropping it from a height of 24.5 meters.

Is a sober driver necessarily less of a threat than a drunk one? We all know bad drivers, and some of us may even be bad drivers ourselves, however, someone who is bad sober will be worse if they're drinking because their reaction times will be slowed and their judgement impaired.

If we truly want to curb DUI, we must do several things: First, we must confront drinking in a constructive way. Telling people they cannot drink is not the answer, but accepting a reasonable level of drinking and raising our children to drink responsibly will not only reduce DUI-related accidents, but may also reduce alchohol abuse and other alchohol-related accidents that don't involve cars. Second, we need to get people to take responsibility for their actions and not only educate people about how easy it is to be a designated driver, but also encourage people to view being a designated driver as a responsibility, not a burden. Third, we need to have steep sanctions for DUI related offenses and not allow people with multiple DUI convictions to be on the road.

DUI is an entirely preventable crime because a person makes a choice to drink and get behind the wheel of a car. However, their behaviour will not change until our society decides to seriously address the issue and we as a culture make the changes in attitude and education to get it to stop.

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Fri Feb 28, 2003 12:13 pm

Ok honesty. I cant count on any amount of hands the amount of times I've been liquored up and drove. Sure people yelled "you cant drive" but they were wrong. I could , just not well.

The fact is driving drunk is idiotic. If something were to happen you would be so screwed (in california at least) that you would suffer for ever for it.

Not to mention if something happened to some one else.

Driving after having a few beers is wrong too if not just for the fact you would still get a DUI.

What gets me is those new stupid commercials about people being stoned and that being a big dangerous car accident cause. They state facts like weed is the only thing in thier system. They disregard the fact that the person was probably drunk outa thier mind. Sorry im gonna end this work calling..

smass · Post by **smass** » Fri Feb 28, 2003 2:33 pm

Wasn't going to post - but the few admissions of drinking while driving got me going.

I used to drink and drive very often. In my formative years (mostly late high school and college) I drove after drinking a few nights per week. Always felt I was a good driver while drunk - always felt I could handle things better - was more calm, etc.

In my early twenties I was driving a few friends home after a bachelor party. I had had a few drinks - but I new I was going to be driving and therefore was trying to pace myself. I was driving around a curve - I lost concentration - or misjudged the edge of the road - and my front tire went off the road - it lodged in a ditch that went under a driveway and the whole car listed to the side, pivoted, and rolled over on the roof. My passenger was in the back seat with no seatbelt and he hit his head on the roof - cracked his eye socket - although no other damage.

Scary moment being on your roof on someones driveway at 3:00am in the morning - hardest thing I ever had to do was work up the courage to ring the doorbell of the house and ask for them to call the police.

Could have been worse - I could have killed my friend and myself - luckily neither thing happened.

One thing that I realized was that no matter how confident I was behind the wheel - no matter how well I "held my liquor" - no matter was rationalization I used - Driving after a few drinks is just not a good idea.

To those of you who think otherwise I can only say - denial is not just a river in Egypt - please don't learn the lesson the hard way.

Maharlika · Post by **Maharlika** » Sat Mar 01, 2003 3:49 am

A little comic relief then...

... btw, nice series of posts there HLD...

...and thanks for clarifying re: manslaughter and murder.

Too Late:
The man was in no shape to drive, so he wisely left
his car parked and walked home. As he was walking
unsteadily along, he was stopped by a policeman. What
are you doing out here at 2 A.M.?, asked the
officer. I'm going to a lecture. The man said. And who
is going to give a lecture at this hour?the cop asked.
My wife, said the man.

Scayde · Post by **Scayde** » Sat Mar 01, 2003 4:32 am

Re: A little comic relief then...

Originally posted by Maharlika
... btw, nice series of posts there HLD... ...and thanks for clarifying re: manslaughter and murder.

Too Late:
The man was in no shape to drive, so he wisely left
his car parked and walked home. As he was walking
unsteadily along, he was stopped by a policeman. What
are you doing out here at 2 A.M.?, asked the
officer. I'm going to a lecture. The man said. And who
is going to give a lecture at this hour?the cop asked.
My wife, said the man.

LMAO..good one Mah

..that is hilarious

Maharlika · Post by **Maharlika** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 8:51 pm

Yes, another one...

...this time it's personal.

Cindy happens to be the daughter of a fraternity brother (Deacon Carlos) who is also a dear friend of my father since way back in college.

She will be sorely missed.

Tybaltus · Post by **Tybaltus** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 9:04 pm

Re: Yes, another one...

Originally posted by Maharlika
...this time it's personal.

Cindy happens to be the daughter of a fraternity brother (Deacon Carlos) who is also a dear friend of my father since way back in college.

She will be sorely missed.

Man....I am sorry to hear someone you knew has passed in such an unfair way. I have never lost anyone close through drunken driving, I have already expressed the stories I do have. But the stories are, seemingly, endless and are always depressing, but take on a whole different feeling when its on a personal level. Again, I feel sorry for everyone...there is nothing but victims. How much do people want those extra drinks? Man...its disheartening.

Hrm....I hate to leave the post on such a 1 demensional point, but the link seems to not work...

Maharlika · Post by **Maharlika** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 9:19 pm

Thanks Tybs...

Originally posted by Tybaltus

Hrm....I hate to leave the post on such a 1 demensional point, but the link seems to not work...

...done and fixed.

Scayde · Post by **Scayde** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 9:25 pm

OMG..Mah...I am so very very sorry........my deepest and most heartfelt condolances. Chan is Off Line now, but I will let him know, I think I am safe in saying he will be as heartbroken as I am over this.

For Cindy and her family