Yeah, exactly. As for, “But there were no witnesses,” first of all, I think the two survivors count as witnesses, and second, as mentioned previously, there are accident investigators whose job it is to figure this stuff out.
“They’re teenagers, so they probably aren’t the best drivers and are easily distracted,” is a reasonable statement to make. “They’re teenagers, so just because they were on the road they are at fault in any accident they are involved in, and furthermore because they were going to a party, they were likely drunk already or if not, then they were 100% guaranteed to get drunk later, which also makes them irresponsible and at fault,” is not reasonable and in fact sounds insane.
Where is your proof of that? You argue that no one actually witnessed the other driver crossing into their lane, though it’s in the article, but you’re sure the teenagers were doing nothing but going to get drunk and drive anyway? Hypocritical much?
Things I did as a teenager that had me out late and STILL not drunk driving:
Playing DD to my friends (I had a car and flexible parents. I told friends to call me if they were drunk somewhere, and I would come pick them up so they wouldn’t drive or have to ride with drunk drivers).
Work until after 1 in the morning. And yes, I occasionally gave other employees rides home after that so they wouldn’t have to walk. My parents were such terrible people for allowing this.
Equestrian competitions where I would be schooling horses until the whee hours of the morning, and then giving my friend a ride back to her place on my way home.
Pick family/friends up from late flights at the airport.
Go to hang out with friends/party but NOT drink.
Things I NEVER did as a teenager (or since):
Drive drunk.
Glad I never got in an accident doing any of those things, damn it would have been my fault for being on the road…
Just because you’re stupid and irresponsible doesn’t mean everyone else is. It’s not all about you. Honestly, just how stupid are you? I like this line:
They have these people called “police officers.” Some of them specialize - oh, I’m sorry, that’s a very long word. Some of them are good at going to accident sites and determining the events that led to the accident. I’m going to go out on a short limb here and suggest that maybe, just maybe, that’s where some of this information is coming from.
Here’s a more recent story that says all the teenagers’ cars in the “party train” were in sight of each other. The drivers & passengers of the other cars were witnesses to the crash - they said the jeep was in the middle of the road. And for some reason it will take 2 weeks to get blood test results on the driver.
Ok, so it was probably the other driver’s fault. There’s still nothing wrong with withholding judgement until the evidence is in. Why is it so crazy to wonder if a bunch of irresponsible kids going out to party after midnight on a saturday MIGHT have been drunk. I never said they HAD to have been, but it’s ridiculous to get so indignant about somebody just saying it was POSSIBLE.
I also still think the the parents have some responsibility here. Those kids never should have been out on the roads that late, especially not in the middle of a “party train” going to get wasted. My kids sure as hell never will be.
This is probably the first and last thread where I will ever agree with Carol Stream. People need to control their kids.
You were trying to shift the blame by saying if they weren’t drunk now, then they’d be drunk driving later - therefore they’d be guilty of what he was doing, and in some way that ultimately shifts some responsibility to them. Otherwise why say it?
In regards to whether they’d be drunk later, you didn’t use conditional language - you were sure of it.
This is a tip off that perhaps you should give it more thought.
They must deserve death then!
I see no mention of a curfew in that news article. Is there some national law that teenagers aren’t allowed to be out at night?
I’m not trying to shift any blame at all. I’m suggesting that the fact that they were on their way to a party so late at might suggests the strong possibility that they had already been drinking. I wasn’t fixing any certain blame at all, just saying the kids MIGHT have shared some.
I think that what we can all agree on, is that this story is sad and tragic, and that drunk driving is stupid, incredibly risky, and worthy of severe punishment even if nobody happens to get hurt.
I still want to know, why is the perp in the mug shot freaking smiling? I understand it’s likely he was heavily intoxicated…but man, if I knew I’d just taken the lives of four kids because I was an idiot, I’d be weeping in shame!
But not all teenagers staying out past curfew drink. If there was suspicion of alcohol on the side of the teenagers and their party train, wouldn’t the article have mentioned it? Wouldn’t the cops also be suspicious as you are?
I was a teenage once too. I never got drunk once during that time. Guess you can’t extrapolate everyone else’s behaviors from how **you **acted as a kid. Gee, what a novel concept.
This whole thread is bizarre.
Come now, this is Diogenes. He once complained about a TV show where a woman in the Emergency Room was given a pregnancy test before getting an x-ray, because he’d had x-rays before, and they never gave him a pregnancy test.
Driving drunk is what this person did wrong – it imposes intolerable risk on others – he is taking away YOUR liberty to drive on the roads in safety.
Actually having the accident is something that happened to him, essentially random, certainly beyond his control (once he drove drunk in the first place). Actually having the wreck is almost like an Act of God.
The decision to (mis)-operate a vehicle is the crime of commission, and the point at which this one-man state infringed intolerably on your liberties.