At lunch yesterday, while discussing our weekends, a coworker told us that he went out to dinner with his SO, had a little too much wine to drink, and wound up running 2 red lights while driving home. He finished with “Good thing there weren’t any cops around!” and laughed. Another coworker then gave him the advice about refusing to take the breathalyzer if you think you may fail since refusing is a lesser offense than DUI.
I then turned to DUI-guy and said “Alternatively, you could just NOT DRIVE WHEN YOU ARE DRUNK. If you do it again, I really hope you do get caught before you kill someone, and I hope the judge throws the book at you.”
Dead, uncomfortable silence at the lunch table (10 people or so), followed by nervous laughter and a quick change of subject.
Was I out of line? I don’t think so - he was bragging about committing a dangerous crime, and needed to be brought down a notch. I asked 2 people at the table afterwards about it, and they agreed with what I said. What would you say to an acquaintance who was bragging about getting away with drunk driving?
You were definitely right in what you said, however, since you have to deal with this person at work on a day-to-day basis it may not have been the best time and place to say it.
It sounds like you handled the situation well. While I agree that it might be uncomfortable to work with the person on a day to day basis, that discomfort is a small price to pay for possibly diffusing another incident.
I used to work with several people who had been convicted of DUIs and rode bicycles to work for a substantial period of time before their license was reinstated. One of them had even been dead on the operating table, only to be revived.
Now the guy who “died” uses an air gun to fool the breathalizer in his truck. It’s such a shame.
You were much more tactful than I would have been. I would have made the comment ‘my best friend/cousin/child/whatever was killed by a drunk driver’. Even though it is a lie in my case, it is way too true in too many other cases and would hopefully make cocky guy think about his attitude and behavior as opposed to just thinking you were a ‘stick in the mud’.
My best friend was killed by a drunk driver, and I would have said the same thing. I may be wrong from a “politeness” standpoint, and yeah, it gets uncomfortable. But maybe you’ll strike a chord somewhere.
…And later… looking back on his life… muldoonthief realized that this was the moment that he became known as the self rightuous office pariah.
I’m sorry but I hope you don’t think for a second that somebody who is willing to drive drunk and then actually brag about it will be put off for a second from doing it again just because some guy at the office publically lectured him about it.
All you’ve accomplished, I’m sad to say, is make yourself look like an ass. Not because you were wrong in what you said but because you were wrong in the timing.
Had you discreetly walked up to him later and politely, sincerely and privately expressed your concern for his safety (and not for some fictitious person he might have hurt), I think your message would have been far better received and you would not have come across as a jerk.
No, I think that QuickSilver’s point was that since the drunk driver wouldn’t definitely kill someone, he should have brought up his danger to other people.
Well, I agree with that much. I’ll add that you can’t change anyone’s behavior by approaching them privately, either, because they just don’t care. Everyone knows driving drunk is bad. The people who do it anyway don’t care and I’m convinced that no amount of careful approach, public humiliation, license revocations, convictions, etc. will stop them.
There isn’t much in this world I hate more than a drunk driver.
Huh? How does he fool the breathalyzer with an air gun? Does he have the gun shoot air into the thing instead of blowing into it? How can the cop not notice this? AFAIK, every method that idiots think will fool a breathalyzer won’t work.
The guy, as part of his punishment, was forced to install a breathalyzer in his car to prevent him from starting his vehicle unless he “breathed clean.”
He’s bypassing that by using an air gun, and should probably be reported to the authorities.
You know, my buddy and coworker David like to brag about his drunk driving too, and I berated him in private plenty of times.
David died this last Friday night, while driving home drunk.
And sad as I am about it, I can only thank God that he didn’t kill anyone else…and wish to God I would have had the balls to report him when I knew he was going somewhere and planning to drink.
Actually, I’ve already got “office right wing gun nut” wrapped up, plus “pedantic refuter of urban legend emails”, so the self-righteous label fits right in.
For the record, his response at the time was sort of an ashamed nod, not a vocal defense of his behavior. I think I may have actually made him think for a millisecond that he hadn’t used the best judgement at the time. I don’t think this is a habitual thing with him - he even said as part of his story that he was more drunk than he expected for the amount he drank. Maybe next time that happens to him, he’ll let his SO drive. I’m probably fooling myself.
I know, but QuickSilver says that a private approach would have been better because the “message would have been far better received and [the OP] would not have come across as a jerk.” I’m saying that you can’t change the behavior of someone who just doesn’t care regardless of how you approach them, so if you’re going to say anything at all, you might as well give it all you got and toss public humiliation (if that’s possible for these people, which it appears to be at least in this case) into the mix. Shame and guilt aren’t really effective methods of changing someone’s behavior, but at least he feels like the selfish asshole that he is.
I’m not sure if the above quote was directed at me, but there you go.
It’s not just a matter of trying to change the behaviour of the drunk driver. If you fail to protest when someone brags about driving drunk, then you’re condoning it. The message of silence, not only to the drunk driver, but to everyone at the table, is that this is a behaviour that we, as a society are willing to tolerate.