Drunks in the night

One thing we didn't anticipate when we moved out into the countryside years ago, was the drunken drivers. In the morning, our drive into town is often decorated with empty beer containers, shattered phone poles, and cars in ditches. Our neighbor's house has been HIT by a drunken driver twice.

This morning I passed a car that had careened up a bank, taken out a fence, slammed into a phone pole, and was now balanced on its nose in a culvert. I turned around and drove by again just to make sure there was no one in the car. No one there--just the abandoned car. Usually what happens is they call someone to come get them. The next day when the police investigate the wreck, the drunk has sobered up and no one can prove anything.

...and my commute was 37 miles one way. I don't know what I was thinking. There were three different occasions when a drunk came directly at me, driving the wrong way, just after the bars closed. Looking back, I don't know how I survived that commute and a 3:30-midnight shift in the airline biz. Someone had to be looking out for me. Take care...:hug:

they may not be sober the next morning

There's not a lot to do out in the middle of nowhere and so many of the people live dead-end lives. Most of the kids I knew had no shot of ever getting out of there, no shot of going to college, of seeing the world, even of going somewhere for a vacation. Their entire family lived within 25 square miles and had for generations, there was nothing to do but drink and be rowdy. And people were pretty fatalistic because they didn't really much care if they lived or died.

Which doesn't excuse driving around drunk but I do understand why areas like that have such a high incidence of alcoholism and alcohol-related problems. :(