Driving Under the Influence... Not Good!

I have been in two wrecks with each of my two best friends. Each time the wreck involved driving under the influence... no, not us... the other driver.

The first wreck occurred on a morning when my friend, Dale, and I were headed to pick up our friend, Frank, to head to band practice. Dale and I were waiting to make a left turn when I hear him yell, "Hold on!" I look behind us and see a car smash into us. We get out to make sure the driver was ok to find out that it is a girl who is headed to the same band practice we were headed to. When we walked up to the car we could smell the marijuana smoke. She was fine. We were in a sturdy 1964 and a half Mustang so Dale ended up with just bumper damage. The girl's car's grill was smashed pretty good even though she was probably able to get the car down under 20 mph before she hit. She was driving a VW Fox. No one was hurt and we each went on to practice not bothering with police reports or insurance papers. We went and picked up Frank and told him what happened and got a good laugh out of it.

The second wreck was a lot more serious and scary as hell. My friend Frank and I decided we would go dancing in downtown Dallas one night. We had a great time dancing with the ladies at the club and walked outside of the club and noticed it was raining. We started home in Frank's Plymouth Acclaim and we were traveling on I-30 East toward Sulphur Springs from Dallas. There was construction along the right lane of the road and there were only two lanes. Before we got to the construction, we attempted to pass a semi who sped up to keep us from getting in front of him. (By the way, if this happens to you, slow down and get behind the stupid ass.) We made it in front of the semi but had to run over one of the orange cones on the road and ended up with a flat tire. Meanwhile, this lunatic truck driver rode our ass until we could get off the road. We get out and replace the flat tire with the spare donut tire. Frank drives 45 mph through the construction, planning on doing that the rest of the way home. There is a line of traffic behind us, frustrated at having to drive so slow. After getting through the construction, we pull over so everyone can go around. Frank notices in the rear view (I find this out later) that a car is approaching pretty fast.

I don't remember what he said but I started to turn around as the car hits us and I find myself thrown back into the seat. The car starts spinning while the force of the hit moves us forward much faster than we were going. We continue to spin out of control through the median, onto the service road and then into the ditch on the other side. We just missed a telephone pole before we came to a stop. I touch myself to see if I am really still alive then look over at Frank. He looked fine. We get out of the car and I am furious. Frank goes over to the other car which is smoking. He was actually being nice to the guy trying to get him out of his car, worried that it might explode. The driver was four sheets to the wind drunk and had a bloody face. Someone stopped and came over to see if we were all right. They called the emergency personnel who showed up a little later. Frank did not want to go to the hospital and stayed with his car. I was taken to the hospital in the same ambulance as the other driver. I was still furious at this guy but kept my mouth shut. Later, I find out that this guy was going over 100 mph when he hit us. His blood alcohol level was very high obviously.

I don't think Frank or I ever laughed about this experience. We do relive it every once in a while and get furious.

Don't expect sympathy if you drink and drive and injure/kill someone or yourself. You will get none. Don't even come up to me and let me know you drove drunk. You will not get a pleasant response. I'm not a violent person but I might just snap over something like that. Even now my blood pressure is up thinking about this.

I love to see the signs that say drive under the influence, go to jail. In my opinion, they should really say - go to prison. Seriously, don't drive under the influence people. It will only lead to heartache and bad times.