DON'T DO THIS
By Dave Roberts
You’ll have noted that we
like to write positive things at South West Life.
The horrible things are covered well enough by other
journalists, and a good job many of them are doing
it too.
So the good news in this story is
- nobody died.
This past month, I’ve known a
couple of people who have fallen victim to the dreaded
drunk driving charge. Shut your eyes for a moment
and ask yourself how well you’d get by without
your licence. One of my subjects has three months
to find out. The other has a few more issues.
Let’s look at the other one.
Old enough to be one of my kids, this young person
has gotten into life as a single, working, earning
part of the South West community. There’s beaches,
parties, attractive members of the opposite sex,
parties, cars, parties, music, parties, oh and parties.
Not a bad kid, and able to muster some very impressive
character references.
Just as many of this person’s
friends will do next weekend, they hooked up with
some mates and went visiting the nightlife. About
the time the sun was coming up two of these young
workers stumbled out to the carpark. The one who
lived closest to work guessed that they had least
to lose if the licence went out the window, so THEY
ACTUALLY DECIDED WHICH ONE OF THEM WOULD DRIVE DRUNK.
Five minutes later, having picked up some just as
drunk extras, bumming a lift home, they got airborne
and cleaned up some of the obstacles that get foolishly
left alongside roads (fences, trees, stuff like
that).
The daughter of another friend happened
to be on the road at the time and spent several
minutes holding his head upright and screaming call
the bloody ambulance while this kid’s lungs
filled with blood and he drifted in and out of what
she thought was going to be a long unconsciousness.
Our subject spent 8 days in intensive
care, and lost a job that had taken quite some commitment
to get. Worse than that, others were hurt in the
accident, and contrary to expectations, got sent
to jail. Yep, jail. So if collapsed lungs broken
bones, unemployment and friends in surgery aren’t
enough, try listening to the door clang shut behind
you.
The other story is in some ways closer
to home. This acquaintance and workmate is close
enough that I’d call them a friend. As you
do, they’d gone out and part of what became
a long, really pleasant afternoon was a few drinks.
My friend is a responsible person, they were aware
that if you’re not careful you can wind up
a statistic. So they counted, and did the things
we all guess will help. The food was as good as
the wine, so they ate. There was more than one glass
of wine, so they drank water in between. I forgot
to ask, but it’s worth betting that they sang
too.
Having done what seemed to be the
right thing, my friend got in the car and made the
run for home. After at least 20 years on the road,
damned if they didn’t run into a random breath
test, and guess what, blew positive.
The story is pretty sad, you get fingerprinted,
you wait IN CUSTODY, you get your photo taken, you’re
not used to being the criminal so you have an expensive
lawyer defend you, the prosecuting sargeant isn’t
complimentary at all, the magistrate is no better,
and there are no rocks to go and crawl under. At
the end of it all, you’re officially what the
police call a pissy driver, and you have to call
your best friends and ask for lifts.
Neither story is pretty, but when
two of them confronted me, it seemed a moment to
say to all of us, this is no light matter. Experience
says you won’t get away with it. Please take
plenty of care, and lean on your kids too. At least
I get to repeat that no one died, and it’s
something I really want to keep saying.
May 2004
