Here we are, on the brink of another new year.
For a lot of folks, that means cracking open a traditional bottle of champagne, and clinking glasses together, in gesture of good will and luck to the year ahead.
For another decidedly smaller group of people, the brink of a new year means sitting behind the wheel of a squad car, badge on chest, finger ready to pop the light bar into life, as yet another drunk driver lurches into view.
Hopefully they’ll stop that driver before one bad decision (getting into the car inebriated) turns into a series of life-and-death decisions for the rest of us forced to share the road with them.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
Nobody is forcing us to get drunk. Nobody is forcing us to buy booze to host our New Year’s Eve parties.
Trust me, the state liquor stores will stay afloat, even if we don’t patronize them for the biggest drinking day of the year.
This is all about choices. And these include choices made by people who aren’t drinking.
Behind nearly every person who chooses to booze it up New Year’s (or any other day of the year) there are people who are watching them do it. There are people who at any point, could step in and either take the car keys away, find them a ride home, or simply refuse to serve them any more alcohol.
Each of us has the capacity to do the right thing – whether it’s realizing we’ve had enough, or making that call when we suspect our fellow partier has.
The problem is that not enough of us are acting on it.
Our Christmas season in Kent started off with a head-on collision, and alcohol is suspected to have played a part.
A total of six people went to the hospital, three of them with serious injuries. They’re lucky – they’re still alive.
How many more of us will hear the sound of crunching metal and breaking glass before we wake up to the fact that drinking and driving don’t mix – and never will?
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