"Mum, I need you to pick me up. The police just banned me from driving, which is totally unfair, since I thought it was perfectly legal to drive after only having 9 points...
...or 'pints' as the police pronounce it."
"What?! 9 pints? Why were you driving at all?"
"Well I had drunk so much, I could barely walk-"
"WHAT?! You could barely walk and you still drove??"
"So? What does walking have to do with driving?"
I have to confess, I love driving, but I find it gets in the way of my drinking most of the time. The ban on texting while driving only makes things worse. Now I have to worry about drink driving, drunk texting AND not getting caught texting.
It also doesn't help that that due to my acetaldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency, I suffer from 'Asian Flush' syndrome whenever I consume alcoholic beverages. Medically termed as 'EtoHriental Erythema' (Chau, 2010), it takes less than one standard drink to get my face (and legs) glowing as red as the traffic lights I would speed through if I was smashed. Forget breathalysers, a colour-chart or spectrometer is all that it would take to grade my BAC levels. This is why I hate photos when I'm on a night out. Cameras & photoediting programs already have a red-eye reduction feature built-in, so why not a red-face reduction feature for asian flush?
Thus, one of the primary reasons why I don't drink and drive is the fact that the chances of my rosy-face not getting stopped by police whilst driving is equivalent to catching a flight with a turban on and not having one's luggage 'randomly' checked.
On the other hand, one could state that all asians technically don't drink & drive. Because they can't drink, nor can they drive.
Stereotypes aside, driving under the influence of alcohol is a major contributor to motor vehicle accidents amongst young adults and represents a major throbbing headache to the police, health system and community every early Saturday and Sunday morning. Impairing both reaction and judgment, it's an established fact that with enough alcohol, even Lewis Hamilton would have the driving skills equivalent to an asian woman driving a Toyota Prius.
So what is it like?
From an observer's perspective, drink-driving seems akin to being in a bumper car. All confrontation, no destination, no steering and no brakes. Every single thing on the road is on-coming traffic and it's like playing dodgeball, except that the balls are of course 2 tonnes of metal zooming along at least sixty kilometers an hour. Of course, the ethanol-saturated cortex can't assess this danger and is having too much semi-conscious fun presumably saying ridiculous things like:
"I hate tailgaters. There's one behind me now and it's so annoying, especially with those stupid flashing lights on the top. "
or shouting out:
"Lumos Green!"every single time the traffic-lights change colour and pissing yourself laughing.
or drunkenly texting to a BFF:
"Just tried to flash my headlights at an oncoming driver to warn him of a cop but I think it was too dark for him to see my boobs."
or singing along to the radio to Bon Jovi.
"OHHHhh Living on a prayer!!"
In my opinion, with the aid of alcohol, there's a perfect time and place to listen to any song, including Nickelback. But you don't find yourself driving off a cliff very often.
And if you do get randomly breath-tested, please don't say:
"Honestly Officer, I wouldn't have pulled over had I known you were just going to berate and criticize me."
So how should this issue be handled?
Despite the heavy television and billboard advertisements, it has become clear that fines, demerit points and random breath tests aren't enough to deter the invincible-feeling, goonhead from taking a stab at driving home whilst smashed. Discouraging risky behaviours like speeding and drink-driving requires new, innovative measures that neither pure legislation nor education have been able to do.
That's why I propose that speed bumps emit a 'scream' when we go over them. The roads would be safer, since we'd all immediately drive slower.
I know at least one paraplegic hobo that's with me on this.
One, just one tree, all alone by itself in a 400km radius.
And yet this moron manages to hit it.
But to be fair, it's the last place he'd have expected a tree.
Moral: When you're drunk, your chances to hit a tree are still decent, even in the middle of a forsaken desert.
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