This message is going to seem pretty straight forward: don't drink and drive. While most people can sit here and agree that it's wrong to drive while drunk, or even under the influence of any alcohol, so many people still do it anyway.
There's no good excuse to drink and drive. In today's day and age especially, we have cabs or services like Uber and Lyft that will pick you up and drive you where you need to go if you happen to get intoxicated and can't drive home. As well as cab services, most people have at least one person in their lives that they can rely on who would pick them up rather than allowing that person to drink and drive.
We hear about drunk driving in the news all the time. We hear of celebrities and other people getting DUIs, and it's gotten to the point that this kind of news isn't uncommon. We hear it and think, "oh that's terrible," and move on with our lives, because it's almost not as real of an issue until it affects us directly.
During first semester at college, one of my old friends was in a car that was hit on the highway by a drunk driveway. He was in the car with four others, and two of them ended up injured. My friend was one of them. He ended up in a coma for months. After a few months in critical conditions, he passed away.
This boy was also in his first semester at college. He wasn't driving the car, and the collision was 100 percent the fault of the drunk driver who crashed into the car. He was going over 90 miles per hour and driving toward traffic on the wrong side of the highway. The drunk driver is now doing over 20 years in prison for his crime, but that's no justice for the life he took.
Think about that. Every 48 seconds, someone is injured by a drunk driver to the point where they are handicapped. And they're the lucky ones because they make it out alive.
In 2014, 9,967 people died in alcohol related driving incidents. That's about 1/3 deaths on U.S. roads.
There's no excuse for driving under the influence of alcohol. When you drive while intoxicated, not only are you hurting other drivers on the road, but you're hurting your own family and friends, as well as their families and friends, even if you get home safely. Putting other lives at risk because of your own stupidity isn't fair.
So call a cab, call a friend, call a family member. Just don't get behind the wheel.
