Drunk Driving: One of Your Own

It can be hard to learn a lesson just from watching the downfall of others. We always assume that we are somehow different, and that those same terrible things can’t happen to us. We have a better idea of just how tired or drunk we are, and we would never drive if we thought we would put others at risk.

But we are still human, and we are still prone to mistakes. We all can have bad judgment. Sometimes we have to find a way to learn from others, or we guarantee tragedy in our own lives. These opportunities to learn present themselves frighteningly often. We need to learn from them or risk suffering a similar fate.

This could be you, or me, or anyone. A father in Texas was driving a minivan carrying himself, his wife, and his four children. It was getting late and he was getting tired, but he’d driven tired hundreds of times before. There was no reason to believe that this time was any different. He did his best to stay awake, turning on music, chatting with other people in the car. But somehow, he drifted off anyway. The next thing he knew he had driven halfway off the road. He pulled the wheel hard the other way, but that only made it worse as he skidded off the road entirely. He woke next in the hospital, and his beautiful eight-year-old child was dead.

It is the responsibility of each of us to make sure something like this never happens. Please, before you get behind a wheel, make sure:

• You haven’t had too much to drink in the last few hours
• You aren’t under the effects of any drugs, prescribed or not
• It hasn’t been too long since you last slept, and you have slept reasonably well recently
• You place your cell phone somewhere you won’t be tempted to use it

It is too easy to assume that bad things will never happen to us, but sometimes they do. Sometimes these bad things are our own fault. Sometimes they aren’t. If you or someone you love has been injured by a drunk, distracted, or fatigued driver, please contact a lawyer to help you make sure that the person learns the lesson they need to learn to never put anybody else at risk.