Drinking And Driving Is Not Funny: Preaching to the Choir

While most would agree that reckless driving is a bad practice I wanted to express some feeling about the topic of drinking and driving.

Recently I listened to a podcast where a man flippantly announced his love for driving drunk. My first reaction was that this person must be joking but at no point did they qualify the comment. They said that drinking and driving is a myth and intimated that it isn't a problem. He said that driving about 7 beers in is great fun. "It's like a video game," he said. This is immature and reckless. 

I certainly do not care if you drink or if you put yourself at risk but when you put other people at risk because of a delusional perspective that you're fine while intoxicated by alcohol is dangerous. I can not respect a person who neglects science, real world statistics and decent morality because they think it's fun to drive drunk. Many things are fun to do but when you put my friends, family and myself in danger I have a problem. 

I recognize that individual effects vary and that many people can drink a beer or so and be fine drivers. To not take simple steps to avoid harming other people because of personal inconvenience is immoral.  It's like running around a mall with a spear in front of you like a jouster and you may get away with it many times but that one time you aren't quick enough to swerve and impale someone. I don't know who would accept the "It's like a video game" argument as justification. Cars are dangerous in the hands of people who are focused and alert and to pretend that alcohol doesn't negatively effect reaction and judgement is diluted. 

Even if half of the deaths attributed to drunk drivers are actually due to other variables there are still way too many people dying from an easily avoided individual decision to drive drunk. If one person drives drunk and kills one person because of it they are responsible for that death. Not being responsible or acknowledging the truth is no excuse for causing harm to others. I don't give drunk adults a pass when they create children and I won't give adults a pass for potentially killing others because they want to have fun. 

Stats:

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html

Intoxication Effects Charts:

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=52905

http://www.brad21.org/bac_charts.html

P.S.
While actually drinking and driving is not funny that doesn't mean joking around about it can't be. Nothing should be off limits for comedy but seriously endorsing drunk driving is wrong.