Drinking and Driving by Sophia

Drinking and Driving by Sophia - March 2017 Scholarship Essay

Sophia Esquivel
Drinking and Driving. For some of us it’s a heavy topic and for others it’s what we do on the weekend nights. It’s the reason why someone can’t wake up to their parents anymore. Someone can’t sip coffee with their significant other on a Sunday morning. Its why we are too afraid to get in a car and when the driver goes 50mph it feels like 100mph.
From being 15 to 60, drunk drivers can be anyone. It can be the class clown who you have a crush on to your aunt. The range is endless. And most of the time you want to trust that you can driver while intoxicated. “Trust me, I’ve done this a bunch of times!” you claim with pride as your friends or family tell you not to drive. You don’t think about it. You do it, because you think you’ll be fine, that you’re not as “stupid” as those kids who crashed on the news. But it’s not stupidity that causes them to crash, but their selfish egos that told them they were fine to drive. You don’t know who’s on the road. It can be a mother on her way to pick up her kids, a group of teens back from the movies, or a family on a road trip. And then it all hits you when you’re getting arrested and you’re being told “You have the right to remain silent.” The questions start to flood in like a tsunami. Why didn’t I just stay over? Why me? Why couldn’t I just have stayed home? And then you try to justify yourself. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think I was THAT drunk. But you did know you were drunk and you still choose to get behind the wheel. This isn’t shaming the fact that people drink. It’s when you get on the road and put others in danger and you don’t measure the consequences when it becomes lifechanging.
It’s an awful feeling being called in the morning telling you someone you love is injured or diseased. To have to collect money to have to pay for the damage a drunk driver has caused. Innocent people dying, because of one selfish choice. I can’t stress enough how impactful a 5minute drive to your house can be.
Without thinking you pass a red light and T-bone a couple in a car, murdering one and injuring another. You just killed someone, and traumatized another. It’s as easy as staying over or calling taxi. Trust me when I say, you rather have to call a sober driver than be handcuffed and imprisoned for driving while intoxicated, manslaughter, etc. Don’t be selfish.