Wesley, McGrail & Wesley
Drunk driving and distracted driving share a lot of characteristics. In both cases, the driver cannot fully concentrate on driving safely. In both cases, they can cause accidents that could otherwise have been avoided easily. In both cases, too, other people can suffer serious injuries or even lose their lives.
But which one is worse?
There's one very easy way to eliminate all drunk driving accidents: Stop drinking. Every single one of these accidents, which are often deadly, is very preventable. If people simply did not drink, they would not have to worry about causing accidents.
After all, many of these crashes involve well-meaning people who just made a mistake. Maybe they did not realize how drunk they were. Maybe they thought they were safe to drive. Maybe they were blackout drunk and so they don't even remember making decisions they never would have made sober.
Brain injuries do not just impact you. They impact your entire family. The dynamics change, the relationships change and these changes can be very drastic. They strain relationships and sometimes lead to divorce.
Perhaps you got into a car accident on the way home from work. A driver ran a red light while texting. It resulted in a devastating crash and your head hit the window. You woke up a few days later with a serious brain injury. Doctors said that you almost didn't make it.
Don't text and drive. Just don't. Nothing that you need to text to a friend or coworker or family member is worth causing a car accident. You never think it's going to happen to you. When it does, it's guaranteed that you'll regret causing the wreck to send a meaningless text message to someone who probably didn't read it right away, anyway.
Maybe you don't text and drive. You get it. You've seen far too many accidents caused by distracted drivers.
Drunk driving continues to be a serious issue in the United States, year after year. These crashes took 10,874 lives in 2017, for instance. That was a drop of 1.1 percent from 2016, when another 10,996 people lost their lives.
Maybe you lost a loved one in a DUI accident, so you know only too well how common it is. You understand how drunk drivers never think it will happen to them until it does. You know all about the emotional and economic impact such a loss can have on a family.
You're out with friends when one member of your group says that they're going to leave. They drove to the bar, while you took a cab. They claim that it's fine for them to drive, drinking a cup of water at the bar before they go.
You know that it's not true. You watched them drink more than you, and you know you're well over the legal limit. They're definitely too drunk to drive, and they're putting everyone at risk by getting behind the wheel. What should you do? Here are a few steps you can take, though this can be a potentially difficult situation:
For many years, drug cases were simply treated as criminal cases. If you broke the law, you went to jail. That's the same punishment used for many other criminal actions, with the hope that those who went to jail would then change their ways when they got out. Jail could also act as a deterrent if people knew they could go and wanted to avoid it.
However, it quickly became clear that drug crimes were often something of a different nature. Was jail really the best option? Was it wise to treat these cases like other criminal cases?
The roads are only as safe as the worst driver.
It's an unfortunate reality. Say you have 10 cars on a stretch of highway. Nine of those drivers can observe the speed limit and drive safely. If the third driver is speeding, changing lanes without using a turn signal and texting while driving, though, they can easily cause a multi-car crash. Suddenly, despite the fact that most of the drivers were very safe, half of them are on the way to the hospital.
Our roadways are increasingly congested these days, and it seems like more and more lanes are full of large commercial trucks hauling heavy cargo. Regular consumer cars don't usually fare very well in truck accidents, and the results can be devastating. It is always wise to remain aware of ways you can keep yourself and your loved ones safe when driving.
Commercial trucks have many more blind spots than consumer vehicles, and may need much more room to come to a complete stop. Every day, drivers put themselves in serious danger by failing to understand these dangers and avoid them.
You know a distracted driver when you see one. Maybe it's a man on his cellphone who weaves all over the road while he talks. Maybe it's a teenage girl who keeps looking down and texting her friends. Maybe it's a group of college students on a road trip, laughing and talking and singing along with the music. Or maybe it's someone's elderly parent trying to fight with the GPS while still driving along in afternoon traffic.
None of these things are good. They're all distractions, as are things like drinking coffee, eating breakfast, doing your makeup and a thousand other activities that people engage in behind the wheel. But they may not be the worst. Do you know what some research indicates is one of the biggest distractions? Your children.
Wesley, McGrail & Wesley PLLC
88 Eglin Parkway NE
Fort Walton Beach,
FL
32548
Toll Free:
866-445-5849
Phone:
850-226-5051
Fax:
850-244-0973
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