Each year about 12,429 people die due to driving under the influence of alcohol. This number grows even more when other types of impairment are added to it. For example, being on drugs, being distracted, driving while tired, or medical conditions. Everybody knows what impaired driving means, but not many people take it very seriously. People often think that driving when tired is okay because the ride home will "wake them up", or they don't have any other choice. Some people think that driving after drinking alcohol is fine and will say "I didn't have that much, so I'll drive home." These people don't realize the danger they put themselves, and other people in. The driver can drift into other lanes putting themselves at risk, or the people on the other side of the road. When these impaired drivers decide to drive when they shouldn't, they don't realize how selfish they are being. they could take other people in the vehicles life, or other people in the roads life. Even if you're driving and you're not the one impaired, you still have a risk of being hit by an intoxicated driver or a distracted driver. This is very scary and there isn't much you can even do about it.
I do have my own personal experience in this kind of situation. In this story my two friends names will be "Sarah" and "Kim." This all takes place when I was in seventh grade. I was having a sleepover with my two best friends. In the morning my friends and I got woken up early by Sarah's mom. We heard her crying on the phone. Sarah's mom drove us over to Kim's house. When we arrived at Kim's house, her entire family was there. Everyone was so stressed and tense. Kim's aunt and mom were crying and we had no clue what was going on. We overheard something about a car accident and Kim's brother involved. My dad picked us up and drove us to our house so we could be separated from the situation. Once we got to my house, Kim's mom called her. She said that her brother had been in a very bad accident and he is being arrested and that everyone is badly injured. We later found out that the story was Kim's brother and my brother's, friend had a party. Everyone went home except for three guys, which included Kim's brother. Two of their girl friends snuck out their house and came back to where the party had been. It eventually got late and the girls had to go home but couldn't call their parents because they had snuck out. So they all decided to drive the girls home. Kim's brother was the driver. On the way home they got into a very bad accident. People had broken ribs, concussions, punctured lungs, and more. Everyone survived but one girl. Her injuries were so bad that she died on site. As a result Kim's brother had been arrested and served time in jail. This was hard for me because Kim's family is like a second family to me. So, helping Kim cope and worrying about her brother was hard. I felt even worse because every person in the car would hangout at my house with my brother every weekend. So hearing how severely injured everyone was and that one of them passed away, was hard to fathom. It was hard to watch my brother grieve over one of his best friends. Another thing that scared me was how close my brother was to being in that car. He told my parents he would sleep at the friends house where the party had been. He later changed his mind and decided to come home because he had baseball practice early in the morning. I don't know what I would have done if my brother was in that car.
Although I wasn't directly connected to everyone, the whole situation was scary and upsetting enough to completely change my views. I, of course already knew drinking and driving was wrong and a felony, but this situation gave more meaning to it for me. I think that some people won't understand what it is like until something similar happens to them or someone they care about. I think that drivers education and traffic school courses should be more open and honest about what these outcomes can look like. When I took my five hour course so I could take my road test, they showed real life car accidents and photos of damaged cars or people injured. As scary this was to see, I think that fear will scare people into never driving impaired or at least less likely to after seeing the results. My role to play into preventing impaired driving is making sure that nobody leaves if they are not okay to drive. If I see somebody overly exhausted, I tell them to wait a little longer and try to wake up before driving. Most importantly if I ever see someone trying to drive after drinking or drugs, I will take their keys and inform them how there are so many better options. I also lose touch with people that drive under the influence because that is not the type of person i want to be around. Nobody should be driving impaired.