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The following is not being posted to 'blow my own horn' or to elicit any type of recognition......it is being told to show the never ending "life altering negative effects" of being a passenger in a vehicle being driven by someone who had been drinking.
August 23rd 1951...10pm, in a rural area in the northern midwest. I age 19, accepted a ride home (5 miles)..one small town to another.. from a guy (age 22), I had met just a couple of times. He had his ex girl friend in the front seat and told me to get in the front seat next to her. Un-beknownest to me was the fact that he was angry at her and had been drinking. In a couple of minutes, I became aware of his condition...... but it was too late!
He was speeding, (witnesses said over 90 mph), angry at her and lost it on a curve......we hit a tree in the middle of the driver's door (1949 ford convert--top down). They were both killed on impact. Alcohol, anger and speed obviously are a deadly combination. I lived due to the fact that their two bodies acted as energy absorbing "cushions". I also had run an "air-hammer" all summer (working my through college), which had me in prime shape. I woke up 22 days later, in an 'oxygen tent', in a full body cast....having sustained 2 fractures to my pelvis, 4 vertabrea, left shoulder, shoulder blade, collar bone, left arm, 5 ribs, 3 fingers, cracked sternum, crushed right knee, a major concussion, many stitches and several transfusions.
5 months and 6 days later I left Highland Park Hospital (still in a partial body cast) and 29 pounds less in weight. Later that year (1952), after months of P. Therapy, I went back to college and graduated 1955.
2 deaths and 3 families altered for life, due to driving after drinking, anger and excessive speed.............a preventable situation.
If anybody wants me to talk to their kid(s) about what can happen, due to alcohol, and how you live with the related negative effects for the rest of your life.....I'd be happy to do so.
WOW..... I don't even know what to say after that. Maybe the reason your story hits me so hard it the snowmachine accident I had two years ago that put me in the hospital for a month and a wheelchair all summer. I can't even imagine. Did you fully recover or did you wear the injuries forever?
I have mixed feeling about how to reduce the drunk drivers in our state. I like that we don't have a lot of police presence here. But its more cops on the road, and much stiffer penalties that will keep our roads safer. We also need to change the way people look at drinking and driving. Something like the "Montana Meth Project" did. I think that program was very effective in opening peoples eyes.
That is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea and Nazi Germany, imprisioning you for what you MIGHT do.
A crime that has not been committed cannot be a crime because it hasn't happened.
If you wish to use advertising such as the anti Meth campaign or the current "Don't drink and Drive" infomertials that already exist, fine, but you can't predict what any individual may or may not do.
Punish the offender for what they have done, not what they may do. Yes, it will be too late for the innocent victim, but to punish someone for something they haven't done flies in the face of our entire judicial system.
I have far too much experience in this area.
I serve on a Volunteer Fire/Rescue Department and have been the one to pick up pieces of several people who were driving"Under the Influence". Not just drinking, but recreational drug use or abuse.
The calls I hate the worst are the ones where the driver killed themselves, their passangers or someone else because they were talking on a CELL PHONE.
Drunks and stoners are usually out between Friday evening and through Sunday afternoon, Cell phoners are on the roads 24-7 and have just as little regard for human life as any other offender. I consider it worse because they are not under the influence of any foreign substance to cloud their judgement, just their own arrogance so that they won't pull over, do their talking, then drive.
Studies in Great Britan and the United States have confirmed that talking on cell phones is just as bad as driving under the influence.
If you are going to ban something, ban those miserable phones!!!!
I never ever suggessted imprisoning someone innocent, just implementing harsher penalties.. I think cell phones should be anned also they are super dangerous. That still does not address the issue that someone who feels they have the right to drive drunk takes away my right to be safe. I do recall life, lberty, and pursuit of happiness....well guess what drunk drivers take all 3 from others.
I don't understand whats so wrong with harsher punishment. You can say it wont stop people but at least if it doesn't stop them the 1st time then maybe they should do 60 days for dui, that might make you think twice.
In 40 states and the District of Columbia, restaurant and bar owners, bartenders, waiters and waitresses are being found legally and financially liable for serving alcohol to minors, habitual drunkards or intoxicated patrons who cause accidents or injury after leaving their establishments.
Dram shop or dramshop is a legal term in the United States referring to a bar, tavern or the like where alcoholic beverages are sold. Traditionally, it referred to a shop where spirits were sold by the dram, a small unit of liquid.
Dram shop liability refers to the body of law governing the liability of taverns, liquor stores and other commercial establishments that serve alcoholic beverages. Generally, dram shop laws establish the liability of establishments arising out of the sale of alcohol to visibly intoxicated persons or minors who subsequently cause death or injury to third-parties—those not having a relationship to the bar, as a result of alcohol-related car crashes and other accidents.
The laws are intended to protect the general public from the hazards of irresponsibly serving alcohol to minors and intoxicated patrons. Groups such as Mothers_Against_Drunk_Driving"]Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) have advocated for the enforcement and enactment of dram shop laws across the United States as well as in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The earliest dram shop laws date from the 19th century temperance movement.
The laws have drawn criticism from some who claim they may downplay the role of personal responsibility.
Don't get me wrong I like to go out and have a few beers too. But the drunk has impaired judgment and the bar is not using good judgment to keep serving the drunk, to just turn them loose on the roads with out doing something.
yeah but all the bar etc has to do is offer to call them a cab and they are relieved of thoose responsibilties. Its a BS law
How can this argument be flawed. That is the very essence of the American criminal justice system. People are innocent until proven guilty. Stopping crimes before they are committed requires a totalitarian state were thoughts can be criminal.
DUI is difficult because it's not a crime until an intoxicated person gets behind the wheel. It would require too much man power to be able to stop these crimes at the moment the criminal act starts. Since we can't stop this crime through enforcement, if we're serious about stopping it, it has to be through enhanced punishments to deter the crime in the first place.
I think the biggest reason we continue to have so much trouble w/ drunk driving in Montana is because there aren't alternative modes of transportation and we are dealing w/ distances that are too great.
When I was living in Missoula, it was virtually impossible to get a cab on a weekend night. You were looking at at least an hour wait. In smaller towns, cabs might not be an option at all. Maybe the solution is offering a tax incentive to encourage more taxi businesses in MT
it was flawed in the terms of saying people will just be responsible so we don't need trigger locks on guns.....well no they aren't if they were kids wouldn't get there hands on dads loaded gun now would they
In any rural area there is a higher incidence of death from drunk driving. You have a two lane road, dark, high speed and drinking, that's a bad combo. If for example, a person drank and drove on a large freeway at night, many times it's impossible to go over the median, but on a rural two lane highway, it's not. I think the larger number of fatalities here per population have to do with the conditions surrounding the drivers as well as the drinking itself. Also interestingly enough, many people here still don't wear seat belts. I honestly think people drink and drive in other places just as much but they don't have the same conditions.
Location: Approximately 50 miles from Missoula MT/38 yrs full time after 4 yrs part time
2,308 posts, read 4,122,972 times
Reputation: 5025
Quote:
Originally Posted by AQHA
Did you fully recover or did you wear the injuries forever? end Quote.
GRIZ answer:I recovered beyond my wildest dreams......had a couple of surgeries several years later, and have worn a back brace and knee brace most of the time during these 58 years. I fully realize, "I'm the luckiest guy in the world".
I obviously have some "very specific" opinions regarding 'drunk drivers' and driving after "just some social drinking". I also have "a real big problem" regarding "people with clout" getting off with a 'slap on the wrist'.
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QUOTe from AQHA:
We also need to change the way people look at drinking and driving. Something like the "Montana Meth Project" did. I think that program was very effective in opening peoples eyes. end
I agree with you.....a change in how people view "drinking and driving".
Also, as you say, something similiar to the MT Meth Project might be of value.
I personally think 'un-announced' highway "check points" (particularly after dark -- say from 9pm to midnight), on those sections of roadways that statistically show a higher rate of alcohol related accidents might have an ultimate beneficial effect in terms of making people "think twice" before getting behind the wheel ......when they've convinced themslves they are OK to drive.
But what REALLY "blows my mind".....is when I read about some person who was just pulled over...and issued a DUI FOR THE NINTH OR TENTH TIME! I find that to be TRULY UNBELIEVABLE! Why not have a provision in the law, that after the 1st DUI convicition, a bright RED (day-glo) metal strip is attched to both license plates that reads: ""I am a DUI offender!""
And if a 2nd DUI is issued to that person...his license is pulled for 10 years.
If he gets a 3rd DUI...license is pulled for life AND gets a year in jail.
I personally think 'un-announced' highway "check points" (particularly after dark -- say from 9pm to midnight), on those sections of roadways that statistically show a higher rate of alcohol related accidents might have an ultimate beneficial effect in terms of making people "think twice" before getting behind the wheel ......when they've convinced themslves they are OK to drive.
No, they don't -- but what checkpoints DO accomplish, is to accustom people to living in a "Komrade! Your papers please!!" society. Which is a hideously dangerous precedent -- once people get used to that sort of thing, it's much easier to take away other rights, and you'll never see them slipping away til it's too late.
And most checkpoints don't catch ANY drunk drivers; what they do catch are anyone with an outstanding traffic ticket, warrant, or the like. Cops love 'em because they get to confiscate a lot of cars from people over minor offenses like that (and they're also used to confiscate cash from unwary travellers -- driving around with a wad of cash is 'evidence' that you're a dope dealer, nowadays). Meanwhile, those same cops can't be out patrolling, so any drunks driving on other roads go their merry way unmolested.
[It has occurred to me that if a town can afford a dozen cops to man a checkpoint -- and yes, they usually wind up with that many at each one -- it has at least a dozen cops more than it needs. If it really needed them, they'd be out doing useful things, not manning checkpoints.]
And remember that in a rural state with relatively low traffic, statistics can be deceiving. If a road has four deaths, then next year it has five, that's a 20% increase. If a road has ONE death due to drunk driving, and next year it has TWO, that's a 100% increase. Prohibitionist outfits (like MADD has become) love to brandish that sort of statistic, even tho overall it's pretty meaningless.
What's really stupid is when someone has the good sense to stay put and sleep it off in their car rather than try to drive home -- and gets arrested for "drunk driving" even tho they are PARKED. This has happened a few times now that I know of, with at least a couple convictions based on the illogic "because he COULD have driven while drunk since he had immediate access to a car". How does this sort of stupidity encourage people to do the sensible thing, when they're going to get punished for it?? And how is that not thoughtcrime? It's like saying "because you're carrying a loaded gun, you COULD go postal."
I'm all for punishing idiots. But let's not let their punishment slop over onto everyone, especially via methods that will negatively impact our rights, because you MIGHT be a criminal and we can't have any of that!
As to whether the cops have a duty to "prevent" crime, the Supreme Court says otherwise: According to a decision which at the moment I'm too lazy to look up, the cops' job is to catch the perps after the fact, NOT before, because there is no way to "prevent" crime without eliminating ALL our civil rights (or descending into entrapment as a full-time police method). You can discourage people from becoming perps by way of appropriate consequences, but you can't put a leash on everyone to make them behave. You can't station a cop outside everyone's house to stop burglaries (that, as I recall, was the gist of the SCOTUS decision) nor on every tailpipe to prevent drunk driving.
(BTW, I don't drink and drive, in fact I rarely drink at all and never did drugs of any sort, so I'm not arguing my own case.)
Montana has one of the HIGHEST vehicle insurance rates in this country due to drunk drivers and under or NO insurance drivers.
It is not just my opinion (I have a great driving record and many discounts.) and independent and one company insurance agents have told me this too.
Well then, they're full of it. I can speak from the experience of myself and several relatives who've moved from MT to CA over the past two decades. In every case, our insurance went up -- 3 to 5 times higher than it was in MT. All of us have accident-free long-term histories, too (30 years or more).
The real cause of high insurance rates is ambulance chaser lawyers, which drive liability coverage through the roof. Even when they don't manage to make their frivolous claims stick, it costs you and your insurance company money to defend against them. And there are a lot more of these shysters in major metro-infested states. MT is almost litigation-free, as these things go.
That is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea and Nazi Germany, imprisoning you for what you MIGHT do.
A crime that has not been committed cannot be a crime because it hasn't happened.
If you wish to use advertising such as the anti Meth campaign or the current "Don't drink and Drive" infomertials that already exist, fine, but you can't predict what any individual may or may not do.
Punish the offender for what they have done, not what they may do. Yes, it will be too late for the innocent victim, but to punish someone for something they haven't done flies in the face of our entire judicial system.
I have to disagree with you Rez on the checkpoints. I feel, they are not taking away my rights. My right to do what? Drink and drive? Slip by with an outstanding warrant? Evade arrest or questioning? I will happily stop at a checkpoint and take a couple minutes if it means that my sons or daughters and myself can drive home on that highway without worrying about drunk drivers.
Also, the police do have the obligation to Prevent crime, not just after the fact arrests. For instance, the Meth program in Montana. Or the DARE program. Police giving safety lectures at schools. Setting up booths at the county fair to answer questions. These are all good things and they work. I don't feel they infringe on my rights.
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