Published October 13, 2007
October means a number of things: Halloween, the World Series, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and usually, homecoming.
Homecoming is typically the hightlight of the football season and it never matters if your team is above or below .500.
For a number of people, especially the college crowd, homecoming can mean a full week partying and free-flowing alcohol. Oh yeah, you also get to see friends you haven't seen in years and play catch up with everyone.
Unfortunately, drunken partying can lead to drunken driving.
Let's get one thing straight, tipsy driving IS drunk driving. If you're impaired, you shouldn't be operating ANY machinery and certainly not a motor (or any other type of) vehicle.
Although 21 is the legal age for alcohol consumption in Louisiana, the number of high school students with access to liquor is far too high.
Driving while drunk is not limited to people in their 20s or teens. No matter if you've been driving for five months, five years or five decades, you shouldn't drive while inebriated.
Of the 982 Louisiana fatal traffic accidents in 2006, 475 or 48 percent were alcohol-related.
When someone decides to get behind the whell of a car, he's not only responsible for his life but the lives of the people around him.
Often times, the person who dies in an alcohol-related accident wasn't the one drinking.
Many lives and families have been ruined because someone thought she wasn't too drunk to drive. One of the more common characteristics of drunkeness is impaired judgment, so just because you think you're OK, doesn't mean you are.
Because we know that people under the influence don't always make the best decisions, it's imperative that friends and family members step up when we know someone is making wrong choices.
Please, if you know that someone intoxicated is planning to get behind the wheel, stop him or her. Offer them a ride, hail a cab or just take their keys, if you must.
If alcohol, or drugs, use is an important aspect of partying for you, before going out, select a responsible party who won't participate in those events as the designated driver.
A few hours of drunken spelndor are never, ever worth the lifetime of heartache that driving under the influence eventually causes.
Just because you haven't been caught or in an accident yet, doesn't mean that you never will.
Please, be careful and be cautious.
