It’s hard to believe, but another month has come and gone. We’re one step closer to 2016 and one step closer to the holiday season.
December is a month of holidays, of parties and, yes, of drinking. It’s also National Drinking and Driving Month, which makes sense considering the occurrences of impaired driving tend to go up during major holidays and two in short succession is just asking for trouble.
That being said, it’s very rare that a court docket doesn’t have at least one or two drinking and driving related charges throughout the year. In a small town, when you’re between certain ages and you haven’t started a family yet, there doesn’t seem to be a lot to do that doesn’t involve drinking. And, apparently, the easiest way to get home is to drive, no matter how much you’ve had, and pray you don’t get caught … or that you don’t hurt anyone.
It’s pretty common knowledge that drinking and driving is bad. It’s taught in schools and taught when you take your driving test. It was taught in those scary commercials from the early 2000s. Alcohol impairs your motor and your brain functions — that’s kind of the point of it. So, if you’re having trouble walking a straight line, why would you think that you could drive in a straight line?
Every year, thousands of people are injured and even killed because of drinking and driving — whether it be the ones in the vehicle with the drunk driver or someone in a vehicle that’s hit. Every year campaigns are launched all over the country trying to teach something that everyone already knows: don’t drink and drive.
It hasn’t quite sunk it yet. The numbers are staying the same.
It seems like people believe that if they aren’t caught then it’s not a problem; if they drive slow and stick to the back roads then no one can get hurt. That’s not always the case. The numbers really don’t lie.
There are so many other options – even in a small town. Instead of driving home after you’ve had one too many. You can call a taxi; you can call a friend; you can stay the night where you were partying. Just make a plan before you go out.
The message is simple: don’t drink and drive this holiday season. There’s some stories that we’d rather not tell.
