ceb

Last week we buried the son of one of my co-workers. He had just graduated high school and had been accepted to a fancy ivy league school. He went to a party and 4 graduates piled into a TSX to drive home. The driver had a BAC of .10

My co-worker's son was in the back seat along with a buddy. Neither were wearing seatbelts when the car went off the road, hit something and rolled a few times and broke apart. Both of the kids in the back seat were killed and the driver and co-pilot were seriously injured.

Many of you know that I grew up in Europe so I have a different take on alcohol so clearly this isn't a rant about the evils of alcohol or underage drinking. This incident could have the same outcome no matter the age of the driver or passengers.

This is a rant about drinking and driving and not wearing seatbelts.

The accident was on a semi-rural residential street. Houses are on half acre lots with median values in the million dollar range. No sidewalks but wide shoulders for bicycles.The accident occurred within a block of a school zone with speed cameras and a 25mph speed limit. The driver was well familiar with the road and the speed limit where the crash occurred was 30mph. While no official estimates were released yet, they were well over double the speed limit.

This isn't a rant about speeding either because the "natural" speed on that stretch of road is about 45. This is a rant about driving after drinking and not wearing seat belts.

What our investigation did reveal is that the two back seat passengers most likely would have walked away with bumps and bruises had they worn their seat belts.

If you plan on drinking (or if you end up drinking even if you weren't planning to) then make arrangements to either stay where you are or get a designated driver.

While it isn't easy, either take the keys away from your drunk buddy or call the cops. A pissed off live friend in jail is worth more than a dead one in the morgue. How would you feel if you didn't call the cops and your buddy killed somebody.

Had somebody called the cops then two kids would be alive and two others wouldn't be in ICU. Had somebody called the cops then the driver would have had a ride to the police station and his parents called to come pick him up. Maybe he would have had gotten a DUI. Now he is facing charges for killing two friends when he gets out of hospital.

Driving drunk isn't a joke. It isn't a minor offense that we can laugh about. In this case it ended two lives and changed countless others for the worse.

My co-worker had planned a trip to the new school on the same day that we ended up burying his son.

In the past I've always come down hard on forum members that made comments minimizing the seriousness of DUI. It isn't funny, it isn't cute, and it is damn serious.

The same goes for seatbelts. There is zero excuse not to wear them always. Yeah, there is going to be the very freak incident where not wearing a belt allowed somebody to be thrown from the car as it went up in flames but in 99.9999% of accidents seatbelts will save your life or greatly minimize injury.

Eat, drink and be merry - just don't drink and get behind the wheel. There are no excuses. None, not one, zero, nada. You drink, you give up your keys.

Shotgun3131

I never understand when people refuse to put on seatbelts. Drunk driving is one problem, but not wearing a seatbelt on top of that just compounds the mistakes.

Condolences to your coworker.

xtcnrice

I 100% agree with all statements. I'm sorry to hear about your co-worker's loss. RIP to the two in the back, and condolences to their families/friends.

Username 0

I agree. I wear my seat belt no matter what I'm in. I constantly question my cuz for not wearing one when he drives.
When you get knocked out in an accident, your body turns into a projectile.

My condolences.

TacoBello

The seatbelt has saved my life in the past. I can't imagine what would have happened if I wasn't wearing one.

I'm so used to putting it on, I feel like a bit of a dummy if I don't when driving from one side of the parking lot to the other (hey, they're big parking lots!! )

what boggles my mind the most is how people are willing to listen to the horrendous beeping instead of just spending 4.2 seconds to put the belt on. That beeping is a distraction all in itself- not a good Idea to add distracted driving to drinking, speeding and not wearing a belt...

xtcnrice

Exactly. Even if one were to not truly buy into the whole idea of the seatbelt, I personally would go nuts from the beeping alone.

ceb

We focus on underage drinking when we should be focusing on the effects of inappropriate drinking. I grew up in Europe where you can buy beer at virtually any age and you can buy hard liquor at 16. Accordingly, underage drinking isn't more of a problem than any other drinking.

Drunk driving isn't a minor infraction, it isn't a mistake. A mistake is ordering the salad at your favorite restaurant instead of the steak.

Until everyone recognizes that drunk driving is a serious crime we will continue to have these kinds of tragedies.

Like you all, I'm confused about the people who don't wear seatbelts. I feel odd without a seatbelt - even when I go from the mailbox to the garage.

rlineberg

Wearing seat belts seems like a simple concept, people should feel unsafe without it.

ceb

Here are the remnants of the car. The only way to tell that it is a first gen TSX is by the wheels.

Here is the article about the crash. Please burn these images into your brain before you out without a designated driver or a plan to get home. .1 BAC isn't that much. A couple of beers and a couple of shots will put you there.

xtcnrice

With the car that mangled, I'm surprised the front 2 survived. Wear your damn seatbelts folks...

ceb

You see the pictures and you realize that the car broke apart into a zillion little pieces when it hit the tree. The two kids up front were belted in and survived. The two in the back weren't and didn't. Statistics show that the driver and front seat passenger often sustain the worst injuries. Here they survived because they were wearing seatbelts.

Nickybcareful

These tragedies are devastating on many levels. We had a similar accident in our village a few years ago. A doctor’s son was killed in a car accident after leaving a high school graduation party at a friend’s house (another doctor’s son). He was accepted at Princeton with great expectations ahead.
The boy’s parents became outspoken advocates of underage drinking. After what I am sure was a painful decision for them, they sued the family holding the party and the store that sold alcohol to the underage teens at the party. It had to be hard to bring legal action against members of a tight knit community, but this behavior must be stopped.