Addison Russell to be suspended for DV

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tlombard
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Re: Addison Russell to be suspended for DV

Post by tlombard »

Big Amoco Sign wrote:What's disingenuous about it? Both are considered abhorrent by society.
My view on the drunk driving issue is that I'd be willing to bet that whether many realize it or not, at least 51% of our population over the age of 21 who own a car has driven with a BAC over .08 even if they didn't get caught and even if it was only once. That's obviously based on anecdotal evidence via the people that I grew up around and know today. It doesn't make it right but it is also hypocritical to demonize those who get caught in my opinion. I know I have driven when I shouldn't have and so have most of the people I have known throughout my life. The difference is that most of us never got caught. For example, if my dad said he would never go to another Cardinal game again as long as Player X was on the team because he got a DUI, I'd look at my dad and ask him why it's OK for him to keep working at his job after he's gotten two DUIs in his lifetime. Then I would look at his friends and ask them if they should be able to work because I know for a fact that I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the times they've all driven when they shouldn't have but just never got caught since the action was the same. I think that's why people don't say much about DUIs.

Thankfully the people in my life mostly grew up and no longer take that risk. The wake up call for me was a combination of getting pulled over, being given the field sobriety test, and being told to go straight home (I was only four or five blocks from home but should have gone to jail) just a week or two after realizing that out of a group of myself and five others who met up to take the boat out, THREE had breathalyzers on their cars from getting caught drinking and driving. Of course two of them were driving their significant other's vehicle down. Since that day I have either taken a cab (pre-Uber) or Uber home after drinking. I don't even drive to a bar because I don't trust myself to know where .08 BAC is for me.

My point isn't that drinking and driving shouldn't be demonized (it should), it is just that so many more people have done it and continue to do it that those of us who have driven after drinking before have no right to condemn anybody else who gets a DUI. I certainly can't condemn them. I've done the same thing in my past and I was just lucky I was never arrested or gotten in an accident. The truth is that the actions were exactly the same on my part so I have no room to talk. I'm also the idiot who thinks that driving home safely while drunk is every bit as bad of an action as getting into an accident and killing somebody while impaired. The main difference is that those who get home safely were lucky that nobody was there when they left their lane, briefly crossed over the center line or didn't notice a stop light or sign. Nobody says, "I'm going to get blitzed and ram somebody with my car." When you are impaired, you are impaired whether you get home safe or not. Same action, same intentions.

I will say that thanks to Uber, my experience is that I see fewer and fewer people that I know or meet are taking the risk since Uber is everywhere and cheap compared to cabs. Friends of mine that would NEVER have taken a cab to downtown or Soulard from where they live now (expensive and long wait times) take Uber almost every time we meet up in one of those areas so that they don't have to worry. Thanks to Uber being so cheap and easy, I have even booked and paid for Ubers for people at the bar a few times when I could convince them to let me even though they 'only live a mile or two away' and think they are fine to get home.

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