We Don't All Get Three Strikes

As most of you know already, one of my coworkers was killed yesterday, when a drunk driver hit her car head on. If you read this journal, she was probably your coworker too. It was 10:30 Sunday morning and she was on her way home from breakfast. She was killed instantly. The man who hit her was the same age as me and had three prior DUIs. He's now facing murder charges.

A couple of days before Christmas, I noticed a memorial at my neighborhood grocery store. It had the picture of a teenage boy on it; an employee of the store, and read "We will miss you". When I inquired about what happened, I was told the boy was on his way to work at 10:00 one morning. He was sitting still at a red light and a drunk man with three prior DUIs slammed into his car and killed him. He had already clipped a tree and a mail truck, but kept going until the boy's car stopped him. I'm thinking that boy's mama did NOT have a very happy Christmas.

It's easy to think about what bad, pathetic people these killers are, and how they should never have been allowed to drive, but not all drunk driving deaths are caused by repeat offenders who are drunk out of their minds. Today my boss was telling me about the son of one of her dear friends. He killed someone while driving drunk and never had ANY prior arrests. It was his first time.

I guess my point is this. We don't all get three strikes at drunk driving before we kill somebody. I don't drink and drive that often, but I do drink and drive. And I'll be the first to admit I do not always use good judgement in how many is too many. I may tell myself I'm only having two, but once in awhile two turns into a few more and I drive anyway. Even if I feel like I'm okay to drive, the fact of the matter is, if I am in any type of accident and I am over the limit, I am going to jail. I don't want to go to jail....jail doesn't work for me....neither do murder charges.

No one ever sets out behind the wheel of a car intending to kill someone, but it happens; every day. I'm sad that these two tragedies happened, but I'm determined to make some kind of good come out of them. Instead of focusing on how bad these two killers are, I'm going to turn that finger back around and point it at myself and make a real effort not to drink and drive. Getting my drink on is just not worth it.