Drunk Driving

A crash happened last week that has affected me quite badly. It involved 2 Motorcycles and a car. The two bikes were out for an afternoon ride, a drunk driver crossed the centre line and killed 3 motorcyclists and himself. What made this really hit home was that both Joyce and myself rode bikes for years before coming to New Zealand, we had a few close scrapes over the years but in a situation like the one last week you have no chance. We also knew the woman pillion passenger on one of the bikes. She was the tenant of the house we now rent and kindly showed us around. She has two girls aged 13 and 9, both nice kids, their mum is now dead and so is her partner, what are they going to do? This crash has been big news in NZ, the driver of the car had 4 previous convictions for drink driving and had no license, but it gets worse, he had his son and two grandchildren in the car with him! can you believe it? I just struggle to understand the mentality. The kids were injured but survived. The thing is, there just is not the social attitude here that drink driving is abhorrent. It seems that so many think that if they have been drinking and can still stand, then they are fit to drive! The Police do their best, we have random breath tests where you are pulled over into a checkpoint and asked to give your name and address into a device that detects alcohol on your breath, it is quick and simple, we have been stopped 3 times now (no problems for us as we NEVER drink and drive). On the last occasion as we approached the checkpoint, the two cars in front of us did manic U-Turns and disappeared in the opposite direction at high speed, does that mean out of the three cars in our group 66% were over the limit? I am sad and angry, so I will leave it here.