But are we SAFER?

Thank you all for your comments regarding my DUI post. (I know it says I have no comments, but there are 7. I don’t understand Haloscan and I can’t figure out how to make that work correctly.)

I love getting lectured by a cop. It makes me giddy. I half expected him to call me young lady.

Just to clarify a few things. I don’t condone driving while impaired and I don’t think it’s okay. I hired the car because I wanted to drink and not drive, and I am usually the designated driver in the family. This means I will have a glass of wine with dinner and I do not drive when I am impaired in any way. The time I was pulled over (six years ago) I was given a hand-held breathalyzer and the cop even told me they weren’t very accurate. (Um, then why give it to me? I wondered quietly.)

So there are two issues. BAC – how much alcohol is saturated in your blood, and Impairment. As Jen pointed out, there are a lot of old people driving around who have no business operating a motor vehicle. I have been to a funeral of a young man (22) who was killed by a 93 year old who could barely walk down the street, much less pilot a vehicle. I also recently read that “sleep deprivation” means waking someone up during their normal sleep cycle in one 24 hour period.

I’ve been woken up every night for almost five months, sometimes more than three times. Should I not drive?

It all boils down to my original question. Are we safer? I don’t think we are. I don’t think alcohol related auto deaths have gone down. I don’t think the laws are working. Someone suggested a lifetime suspension of your drivers license for DUI, but would that really stop people from driving? My friend is in jail right now with people who have four and five offenses. Clearly the laws are not motivating them to stop drinking and driving.

The sad thing about Arizona is that we don’t have a viable public transportation option. The light rail will provide some relief to this issue, but it’s about 30 years too late. The valley is so spread out and difficult to navigate that there is not a good way to build a system now.

Anyhow, I’m still interested to see what people think. As I said before, I don’t know how I feel about the laws because I don’t think they are working. If you have evidence to refute that I would love to hear it.

Whew.

Now on to knitting. I just dropped the first stitch in my prototype baby blanket. I am doing two repeats of the straight rows of Clapotis and then starting to decrease. I also am going to change yarn at the halfway point and see what happens.

We went to knitting and rugby Saturday and were almost blown away – it was so windy my allergies turned nasty and we had to leave after a few hours. Here you can see the cute boys, as well as the flag that shows just how windy it actually was:



Pam and Jack hung out for a bit. Unfortunately I forgot Jack’s hat, but his sunglasses made it. Here they are looking hip together:



Here is Melanie working on her baby blanket and holding her adorable little dog:



And Gemma bringing Mariah back to the camp:



It was a fun day out – I wish I would have felt better and I wish it wouldn’t have been so darned windy.

Tomorrow night is knitting at Changing Hands. We’re meeting at 5:30 for dinner at Wildflower if anyone wants to join us. According to the evite it will be a smaller group than normal – only 19 people have rsvp’d yes, so the room shouldn’t be so crowded. And I’m hoping Becky brings her baby – it will be funny to see a brand new one next to my roly-poly guy.