Ahh, gotcha. I completly forgot about breathalyzers installed in cars. :smack:
Nope, but it might make other people at the table change their opinions about the driver and/or their own perceptions about DUI. I’ve a collegue who insists on driving drunk; we’re talking 16 beers drunk (or so he claims, and his cash depletion seems to match his recollection), and he ain’t the best driver in the world even when dead sober. His excuse? “I don’t want to get arrested for sleeping in my car.” What? He persists in this even after another cow-orker was arrested and had to spend over a month on house arrest after his first DUI. (California is really serious about drunk driving.) I’m tempted to call him in–if I knew specifically when and where he was I’d do so–but barring that I do give him the, “That’s really censored stupid!” comment every time he boasts about it. He also refuses to let me drive or take the keys when he goes drinking, so…I don’t go with him. (No skin off of my back…all he does is complain about work anyway.)
So, good on ya, muldoonthief; at least you know that some of your collegues have picked up on your comments and share your sentiments. Oh, and no good friends or family members killed by a drunk driver, but three kids I went to high school with died in three different car accidents involving alcohol. Could there be a more pointless way to buy the farm?
Stranger
One night I was getting donuts at Krispy Kreme and some drunk asswipe plowed into my parked car with my wife and two small children inside. No harm was done, fortunately. The guy tried to weasel out of it, but I told him that the police were going to be called and he was the one who would do it.
Flash forward to the guy’s court date. I made an appearance, but he pled guilty. I then watched the judge “throw the book” at him, passing down multiple sentences, only to have much of my satisfaction melt away when the judge uttered the words “to be served concurrently”.
I wouldn’t resort to violence, but I’ve not shied down from making my friends fell about two inches tall upon hearing their drunk driving confessions. Usually a subdued “Yeah, that’s funny–like the time a drunk driver almost killed my kids…” is more effective than any angry response I can think of.
My thoughts exactly. Just because someone does something wrong doesn’t mean it’s your responsibility to lecture them (and to try to publicly embarrass them in front of their co-workers). Do you tell fat people to stop eating unhealthy foods? More people die from that than drunk driving. Speeding kills more people than drunk driving, do you lecture people about that too. I’m not saying this guy isn’t an ass for running traffic lights, but your lecture seems ineffective and out of place. You may be a nice guy and all, but it seems like it would be more appropriate to save your anger for people who would likely be more receptive.
Silence implies that you don’t have a problem with it, and I think there should be much more public scorn for such reckless behavior. I hope that I have the guts to do exactly what you did if I’m confronted with that kind of situation.
Silence implies you don’t have a problem with it? I don’t think this is true at all. For example, as much as I disagree with the President, if I were lucky enough to go to the white house, I wouldn’t tell him I think he’s fucking up everything. There are plenty of times I disagree with what people do, just because I don’t say anything about it, doesn’t imply I have no problem with it.
I can’t say I agree with most of you. Other people being morons is not an excuse to be the office jerk or to wish harm on anyone. If you have a problem with his drunk driving find a way to deal with his drunk driving (follow him on a Friday, call the cops once he sets out from a bar or some such). Your display did nothing to prevent him from driving drunk again, only now he’ll have the added bonus of knowing that his actions are making someone who was a jerk to him really mad. Whatever happened to subtlety and common decency?
I would have said something. It’s an easily preventable behavior, and as for the person who said overeating causes more deaths, I’m sorry but you’re not taking someone else’s wife and kids with you, damnit.
Drunk driving is wrong. I think most of the things we shame for publicly are silly but this is just one thing that is wrong, wrong, wrong, and we need to stop laughing at these people’s idiotic stories and telling them to their faces: Don’t drink and drive, assholes, it kills innocents.
Saying something is common decency.
Letting it go is not.
Irrelevent. Fat people kills themselves; drunk drivers kill other people. See the difference?
Your analogy does not follow; nobody else gets hurt because Homer is gobbling down doughnuts. When Barney hits the road and nails a few pedestrians on the sidewalk or slams into Otto’s schoolbus full of children he does a lot more damage than Comic Book Guy with a year’s supply of Krusty Burgers.
Er, cite please. Given the number of people who speed (i.e. the entire population minus Buick drivers and the occasional suicidally oblivious VW Bug in lane 1 of the Santa Monica Freeway) versus the number of people who drive drunk some fractional amount of the time I doubt you’re going to get a favorable balance.
Stranger
[slight hijack]
Wrong, if you refuse they will just conduct a forced blood draw. Then charge you with a refusal and a DUI. (some jurisdictions may vary)
[/ slight hijack]
No - people like that are a menace. Also, he was bragging about having shit for brains.
It’s proving to be harder than we originally thought. 
It doesn’t always kill innocents. Drunks usually get away with driving drunk. That’s why they continue to do it… until they come to a tragic end of one type or another… or come to their senses by a close call.
Either way, public ridicule doesn’t keep people from taking drugs any more than it keeps them from cheating on taxes or driving drunk. Getting caught and punished usually has a higher success rate. But you’ve got to catch them first.
The coworker was laughing about it and another coworker was advising him on how to avoid the consequences. I would have said something. I’ve already got a reputation for being blunt and tactless; I’ve also witnessed an accident caused by a drunk driver. Details about the accident are here, but please don’t resurrect the thread – it’s a year and a half old zombie. Last October, 3 days into my new job, I had to go to court to testify against the kid who cause the accident. He was 20 or 21 and high on alcohol, valium and cocaine when he crossed the center line at 5:30 on a bright, sunny, summer evening and plowed into a minivan containing a family of 5. No one was killed, but when I went to testify, I learned the mother of the family will need to have her hip replaced. I think she’s younger than I am. As it worked out, the judge accepted a plea bargain and I didn’t have to testify, but I did dredge up the memories. The kid spent Christmas in jail and I have no regrets. His choice to get drunk and high did a hell of a lot of damage to a woman who was simply going out to spend an evening with her family.
If I get considered a self-righteous prig for speaking out against it, so be it. I’m pretty easy-going about most things and one of my standard rants is about the ridiculousness of America’s liquor laws in general and my state’s in particular. Still, there are some things I’m not willing to condone.
CJ
There’s no law against fat people eating unhealthily, and the risk of overeating killing someone else is zero.
Your second assertion is false. From the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2003 there were 17,013 fatalities in alcohol related crashes, and 13,380 fatalities in speed related crashes. cite. You have to select the 2003 Overview report - I couldn’t figure out how to link directly to the pdf. Perhaps next time you’ll look up the statistics before posting incorrect info - fighting ignorance and all that.
Well, he wasn’t just a moron, he was a dangerous felon, bragging about his crime. I think it would have been indecent to just let him think all his coworkers thought it was an amusing anecdote.
There was never a question in my mind that I was going to say something. I firmly agree that just keeping quiet about it would be condoning his behavior, even by omission. I was just trying to figure out whether I should have just recommended he not drive drunk again, make it a little stronger (as I did), or go into the full court press of the true story of my best friend who killed himself (and luckily only himself) when he drove drunk.
askeptic - I have no idea whether that advice is true or not in my state. I was included it as an example of the semi-approval he was getting from at least one other coworker.
Question. Was your comment delivered to the one who had made the confession about getting away with being stupid [party a] or the one who was advovating ways to drive drunk and get away with it? [party b].
First of all if it was PARTYB then more power to you.
PARTYA is a bit different though from my perspective.
Obviously I wasn’t there so I don’t know exactly what tone PARTYA was using in relaying the story but from your description it doesn’t sound like bragging. It sounds like he was telling a story about being incredibly stupid but luckily getting away with it. The laugh to me doesn’t signify much either way. In which case it seems like he was already fully aware that what he had done was dangerous and wrong and had no intentions of repeating the behavior. Thus, if read in that light your public comment achieved little other then to make things awkward, make yourself seem like a jerk and shame him unnecessarily.
Alternatively, if his tone definitely was a bragging one… ie “yeah it was great, I was totally flying through those red lights!” or “But I’m usually a pretty good driver so I normally don’t have problems driving a bit buzzed.” then I would definitely agree with your response.
Given that you indicated his response was embarassment imagine it was the former case. The latter would have just blown off your response and then continued his next ‘funny’ story about this time he was in a high speed car chase and got away with it or something along those lines.
Finally, I think there a couple of simple things you could have done to determine what his attitude was rather then just assuming it was reckless. For example, “have you driven drunk before?” or “do you do this often?”
If he answers in the affermative then by all means shoot forth with full public bile. If not, perhaps table the conversation until a private moment.
First, where did I say it was illegal to be gluttonous or that it causes other people to die? I was that it’s the wrong thing to do. My goal was to illustrate that nobody enjoys being lectured about bad things things they do, especially by a co-worker.
I don’t believe that my stat is false in an absolute sense. Here (pdf, go to page 10) is a cite from your cite. Your assertion that roughly 40% of traffic fatalities are alcohol related is when their new imputation method is used (raising estimates by roughly 2%), and when anyone with an BAC of over .01 is considered under the influence of alcohol. This imputation method estimates missing BAC levels (which are often missing in greater than 50% of cases). Although, this may be statistically valid, it is a not a direct measure of how big an factor alcohol is.
For the year of 2000 (the latest year on the chart), the numbers are very different. It states 41% of all fatal accidents and fatalities were related to people with a BAC of over .01, using the new imputation system (it’s 40% under the old one). However, when you only consider people who were legally intoxicated (ie. >.1 BAC, although it is .08 in most, if not all, states, they don’t give that breakdown so I assume it’s slightly higher) the percentages drop to 33% and 31% respectively. As this cite explains succinctly-
Another problem it that they seem to not assign multiple causes for an accident. I’m sure speeding is a factor in a number of those fatal “alcohol related” accidents.
While I don’t know the exact number of people that die due to alcohol, I know their number is greatly inflated. Either way, I will admit that presenting my statement as a factual claim was probably inaccurate.
You are missing the point I was making. I’m saying the behaviors I mentioned were analogous because they are things plenty of people do that are wrong. I was making a point that lecturing people on all the things they do that are wrong, stupid, etc. is tactless and annoying. Of course, speeding, over-eating, and drunk driving are different. An analogy compares things that are similar, not exactly the same.
As I stated in my above post, I was probably wrong in stating this. For the record, I did look for a cite before I posted this, however I didn’t realize the cite was for another country, and in haste posted what I wrote before. However, speeding is the #1 cause of death in teenagers and young adults. I remembered hearing this, and probably misstated the fact in my previous post. My apologies.
I don’t think you were out of line, muldoonthief. I would normally advocate the “take someone aside for a private discussion” method of letting them know how you feel, but when it is a crime that they are discussing, and a danger to society, feel free to let them know how you feel in front of some of the other members of society that they were endangering.