Drunk driving

Wow, today seems to be a day of inspired writing! And for once it's not all rubbish, but I feel quite intelligent today.

I am patting myself on the back

Lovely.

Ok onto the article.

I feel this needs to be said, even though it may be obvious.

Don't drink and drive.

I remember when I was younger and I would hear stories of my older sister and how friends of her friends had been killed in drunk driving accidents. At the time it never really affected me as I was young, too young to drink or even worry about this stuff.

However as I have gotten older, these accidents have just got closer and closer to me. In the past few months I know of two serious accidents where guys were seriously injured, due to drunk/irresponsible driving. The latest story I heard was that a friend of some of my friends was killed on Friday in an accident. This however was not a drunk driving accident. I don't want to go into it as I don't know the whole story, but reckless driving just cannot go on. Maybe Fridays accident was just that, purely an accident, but the point is that someone died. People are getting killed and it seems that it is happening all the time now. Reckless/fast driving is just as deadly as drunk driving.

Personally, in Cape Town, I think the cops have been doing a fine job of clamping down on it, especially outside night clubs. In Claremont I always see police patrolling outside the clubs and on Friday when I was there they even had security walking through the parking area, keeping a check on things. They have gotten so strict that people are too scared to drive, even after one or two drinks, when they may be under the legal limit still. I won't lie, I have driven drunk before, and I bet so have many of us. However, in the past few years my friends and myself have refused to drive drunk. We won't get into a car with drunk drivers and I was chatting to BMP about a mates 21st birthday coming up this Saturday. The party is near BMP's house and the first thing he said was "It's cool to stay at my place in case any of us is too drunk" For us it's become the first thing we think of. "How are we getting home?" BMP even got a lift back home a while back because he was quite spent, and his mom had to drive him back to his car in the morning, after which he went to work! But that's cool, he's a responsible guy for doing that.

And you have to be strict. About two years ago a friend of mine wanted to drive back to Durbanville from my place in Claremont. We wouldn't allow him and he started getting furious with us, that we were questioning his ability to drive. It ended up with him swearing at us because BMP had taken his keys away. Clearly he was drunk, and he later said he was out of line. The point is, you need to be strict. If a mate says he can drive, when he clearly can't, you need to lay down the law. Don't just give up and say "Fine, go ahead, drive if you want"

Because if that friends gets killed on the way home you will never be able to forgive yourself.

With my mates it's known that at any time of the night, if you are too drunk or have missed a lift, give one of us a call and we will pick you up. No problem, that's what friends are for. There are no points, or "hero" status for driving drunk. I think it's a problem in SA, where guys are too "manly" to not drive just because they are drunk. To me it screams more of "immaturity" if someone wants to drive drunk.

The situation is getting bad though, and there is only so much the cops can do. We need to be responsible for our own actions, the traffic police are not there to hold our hands every second of the day.

So be safe.