Drinking and Driving

Drinking and Driving

Drinking and driving can cause a lifetime of pain. When you get under the wheel while you are intoxicated not only are you putting yourself at risk, but also the lives of other innocent people are in danger. Everyone should have the right to drink but if you act irresponsibly, your right should be taken away. Each person is liable to suffer the consequences from endangering others. One who drives drunk not only should have their license taken away, they should have the right to drink taken away. Drinking and driving may not seem like a big deal until you see what happens when things go wrong. I would like you to read a personal narrative that Casey McCary Bloom wrote who is now serving 21 years to life in prison.

One weekend, seven of us decided to take a trip down from college to my parents' beach cottage in Panama City [Florida]. We were three guys and four girls celebrating our last weekend before beginning our sophomore year. We unloaded the cars and prepared for bed. I did not know then, but it was the last decent night's sleep I would have. We got up the next morning, loaded the cooler with beer and headed for the beach. We laughed, drank and exchanged stories from our freshman year. After finishing an enormous meal, we continued to drink and dance until 1:00 a.m. We had to get back to school early the next day, so we decided to fill the car with gas and get more cigarettes that night. My friend and I hopped in his truck, me in the driver's seat and he in the passenger seat, and headed to an all-night convenience store. We found one store open about two miles down the road. We pulled in, gassed up and headed back to the beach house. It was a straight shot, just a few minutes down a four-lane highway.

As we approached the turn leading back to the beach house, my life flashed before my eyes in one terrifying fraction of a second. Our truck violently crashed into another car carrying four teenagers.

Young, pretty, 17-year-old Donn'elle McGraw, who was in the back seat of the other car, was killed instantly. The other back seat passenger, Mark Weber, was critically injured and was in a coma for a week. The passenger in my car went through the windshield. This horrifying experience seemed to be a nightmare. It wasn't until I was told Donn'elle had died that I became aware that this nightmare was indeed a horrible reality.

I will never forget the screaming and crying that I heard that night. When the police arrived, I was questioned, handcuffed and arrested. I was charged with two felony counts--driving-under-the-influence (DUI) manslaughter and DUI serious bodily injury. I was booked into Bay County jail. When I woke the next day, I felt