This local story is just breaking my heart. The short version: a car with five teenagers were driving down a local 2-lane highway in the very early hours of Sunday morning. A drunk driver came up on them in an SUV, driving towards them on the wrong side of the road. The teenagers swerved to avoid him. He swerved into them.
Four of the five teenagers are now dead; the fifth is in critical condition, despite having been driving the speed limit and wearing seatbelts. The drunk driver sustained minor injuries, and was attempting to get a motorcycle out of the back of his SUV, presumably to leave the scene, when the police arrived. He made no attempt to check on the teenagers in the other car.
And he had a prior DWI conviction.
So there’s four, quite possibly five dead kids, and one fucknugget who most likely will serve a year or two, get out, get his fucking license back, and continue to drive while he’s fucking drunk, risking the lives of everyone around him.
Meanwhile, four kids aren’t ever going to finish high school, because some miserable, worthless monster wouldn’t call a fucking cab. They won’t ever cram for finals or go to prom or feel that joy as they finally get their diploma, for no reason other than some drunk asshole. They won’t have that nerve-wracking first ‘real’ job interview, they won’t go to college, they won’t have any internships, they won’t ever have a first shitty little apartment or fall in love or get fired or get a raise or anything, and the only ‘reason’ is because Mr Scott Owens of Eldorado, New Mexico, was fucking drunk when he got into his fucking car.
So pretty much fuck him, fuck anyone who’s ever driven drunk for making such an unforgivably stupid mistake, and fuck New Mexico for having such a fucking stupid culture where it’s just fine to get behind the wheel after drinking all night.
Second, no BACs are available for anyone involved in the linked story.
Third, both drivers swerved to avoid each other and horror ensued.
Fourth, the stats in the link show the culture of New Mexico having a consistent reduction in deaths and injuries related to DUI. I’ve lived in New Mexico, though I’m now in California, and I think drunk drivers range long and far.
Before reading the link, I finished your OP and though to myself “She either needs to visit New Mexico some day and she’ll read something like this monthly or she is in New Mexico and reading about stuff like this monthly has caught up to her.”
More on topic though, I agree. Eternal damnation to them.
Can we add people who talk on their cell phones while driving to that august body? Despite lacking the excuse of being stupefied by drugs, they too are incredibly dangerous to others.
People who talk on their phones while driving should only be singed in Hell. I believe they have the intelligence to not do it anymore if they are allowed a glimpse of their future in Hell.
Regardless of the details of this particular story, the OP’s title is 100% correct. There is no excuse. There is never any excuse. Fuck you, drunk drivers.
I have no objection to drunk drivers and neither should anyone else. Feel free to weave down the highway, drunk as a lord – as long as you don’t actually hit anyone or cause an accident. If you do, then by all means drop the hammer. I think people should be punished for what they do, not what they might do. But then, you folks probably think Guantanamo Bay is a great idea too.
I will grant that they have not yet gotten the results of the blood alcohol test. However, the guy had a prior DWI conviction, smelled of alcohol, had bloodshot eyes, was slurring his speech, apparently was unaware that he was driving in the opposite direction he thought he was, and was driving on the wrong side of the road. Yes, I’m making an assumption, but I’ll be very surprised if he wasn’t drunk.
The driver who was killed swerved because the [allegedly] drunk guy was on the wrong side of the road. I know that road. There’s a teeny tiny little shoulder and then a metal fence; driving off the road isn’t really an option. If Mr Slurred Speech had stayed on his side of the road it wouldn’t have happened.
Yeah. I grew up in New Jersey, where there’s a hell of a lot more people driving around, and I think I recall one major traffic accident near my hometown where alcohol was a major factor. There are, without a doubt, more DWI fatalities here in NM - literally, every couple months, someone is killed. This past March two people on a motorcycle were killed in a head-on collision: the driver of the car that hit them was drunk. In the fall a pedestrian was killed in a hit-and-run: the driver was drunk and there was an off-duty cop in the car. Over the summer a drunk driver came very close to causing a major accident when he was swerving across all over first the interstate and then a 2-lane road*.
*There’s video of this incident. Miraculously the only person he hurt was himself, when he ran himself over, which I personally interpret as ‘even this guys truck thinks he’s a dick’.
Right. That’s going to bring the kids back, you moron. The point of the law is to get these scumbags off the road before they kill anyone.
DUI arrests are for what they did - drive drunk. If the punishment is for what they might do, then they’d be shot right between the eyes then and there. That’s slightly too harsh for my tastes.
Waaaaah, protect the children, protect the children! Battlecry of the modern fascist, who justifies her or his intolerance by claiming it’s all for the children.
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves.” – William Pitt
Are you fucking insane? I object to drunk drivers because hey can potentially kill me or someone else. Even gasp you. Your position has no real defense. Irts not only stupid, its asinine.
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Yeah, just roll the dice. Thats what the dickweed that killed one of my best friends thought, I’m sure. And believe me, my friend was a far better person than this idiot was. That was 16 years ago and I still miss her, as her family does. But thats what happens when you drive around in a fucking 2 ton piece of metal as “drunk as a lord”.
You’re a fucking idiot. I don’t say that to people lightly. Having no concept of public safety mustr be easy for you, or you’re like 13 years old. Your strawman of Gitmo is laughable.
Here in Minnesota, we have whiskey plates which give drunk drivers a THIRD chance at ruining our roads. My partner and I were out for a walk one night after the kids went to sleep and as we were walking down one street we see a car with the whiskey plates pull into a parking lot, the driver exits the vehicle, and bee lines to the bar. My partner put his hand over my mouth so I didn’t say anything.
Me too. I posted in an earlier thread about my views about what I guess are exponential penalties for DUI. This guy had an eight year old beef for DUI and I have no sympathy for whatever the law wants to throw at him.
Unless there’s been an update the driver was the lone survivor, not that it matters too much who survived.
Good rant, NinjaChick. The closest I have ever come to actually hitting another person was when an asshole relative of mine started spouting off about how drunk driving wasn’t really that bad and how the penalties for it are ridiculous, it’s all a sign of the nanny state, blah blah blah. Fuck him, and fuck anyone who thinks it’s OK to get trashed and then hit the highways.
My position is that people should be punished for what they do, not what they might do. Actually, I don’t think people should be punished at all. Punishment is an antiquated an utterly reactionary concept. Justice is restorative, not punitive. Which is why they’re called courts of law and not courts of justice. If this belief is “asinine” then I wear the label proudly.
As it happens, a black person is statistically more likely – considerably more likely, actually – to commit a crime in the United States. Should we lock up all black people because they pose a higher risk to your children and your nice white friends than the general population? Your chest-beating hystrionics about dead friends and splattered children plays well on the O’Reilly Factor, but around here I’d expect people to make rational arguments. Perhaps I’m wrong.
People are locked up in the Guantanamo concentration camp because they are suspected of harbouring anti-Amerikan sentiment. No one has accused them of a crime. They are “pre-emptively” incarcerated and tortured not for what they have done, but for what they might do. This is exactly what you want for the rest of the population. And why people like you and the rest of the “For The Children!” warriors in here must be opposed with every ounce of strength at the disposal of those few of us who remain committed to liberty.