Tuesday 4 September 2012

Hit me again bartender

My favourite 5 minutes of morning radio was very interesting this morning. The announcer mentioned that he had several children who were in the police force and that over the long weekend he took the oppertunity to ride with two of those police officers. A very hard job they do said Cliff, one that is both important and at times very difficult. Both of those attributes are very true. There is nothing so difficult as doing the job that no one wants to see you in person doing. The police are there when the little kid is lost and scared, the police are there when some moron thinks that his woman is a punching bag, the police are there at the road block doing their best keeping drunk drivers off the street. Every time I run into a road block my trip is extended in length by 5 or so minutes and I am very happy to spend those minutes. 

Those out there who get into their cars after have 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or..... have no business being on the road. Long gone are the days when it was funny to stumble out to your car and ram it into a fence post, or a tree, or the broadside of a bus full of kids. Those who drive after drinking think that they can handle it, they are good drivers, they are in control. Tell that to the kid who watched as her mother was mowed over by the person in comeing down the road from the bar, tell that to the person lieing in the hospital after being pulled out of the car that was t-boned by the kids driving away from the party.

The solution to drunk driving is no longer educating people, we have all heard it before, too many times to count, we have all seen the pictures of the mangled cars, the mangled survivors. The solution isn't bring these people to court, the court system is too back logged as it is, and there are too many lawers out there ready to twist any little detail out of context to get people let off. The solution isn't more fines or suspensions, thou I think losing your licence and having that posted publicly is a great start. I think the solution is the cars themselves - you get stopped with x amount of alcohol in your system, the car you are in is taken right then and there and you don't get it back. Every time you lose a car, another mark goes on your driving record. Soon every time you ask buddy to borrow his car, or you go to rent a car you get told no. Eventually you will get the message and one more drunk will be off the road permanently.

Until then, every time I have to spend 5 minutes at a road block, I will thank the officer stopping me because that officer is out there doing a dirty, nasty job and making the roads a bit safer for me to be on.


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