So I haven't written a "What's Pissing Me Off" in a while.  I guess I've been a pretty happy camper lately!

However, that mood was too good to last.

Today's "What's pissing me off" is actually a very serious topic that I can't really make jokes or be sarcastic about.  It is a topic that should piss everyone off, no matter who you are: Drinking and driving.

Be warned: I get really mad about this and it causes me to swear more than usual.

I know, I know, we've all sat through those boring presentations in high school where our teachers get up and preach at us about the dangers of drinking and driving.  Or worse, we've sat through the presentations that are trying to be "hip" and "cool" in order to connect with the youth, but just end up falling completely flat on their face.  This journal is going to lean more towards the preachy than the "cool" since I'm getting old.  

I've always been very outspoken about drinking and driving since I was quite young.  I don't know why, but it has always been a hot topic for me even when I was a cynical teenager and was too cool to care about things.  I think it stems partly from the fact that my dad is a police officer, so I've grown up hearing about car accidents in very graphic detail (re: dinner conversation in my house).  And partly from the fact that I have a brain that functions properly.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with drinking! As a matter of fact, it is one of my more enjoyable hobbies.  I've carried on quite the salacious affairs with both Mr. Jack Daniels, and Senor Jose Cuervo (they make me feel good when they're inside me ) but when you drink and get behind the wheel of a car you are a fucking idiot.  Period.  

Why do I feel so strongly about this topic that it makes me drop some serious f-bombs? Well on the night of Thursday, June 30th 2011 at approximately 9:30pm the car I was a passenger in was struck by a drunk driver.  Before you get upset, both the driver and I walked away from the accident with relatively minor injuries (we weren't dead and only spent one night in the hospital, so anything else I consider "minor").  

The driver of the vehicle who hit us was going well over 100kmph, (approximately 62mph) and when he struck our car head on he apparently had absolutely no control over his vehicle.  The police told us afterward that he had been racing another car and lost complete control.  He slammed into the front of our car sideways on 2 tires.  My mother was driving and had she not been paying attention the accident would have been so much worse I cant even begin to imagine the outcome.  We were on a busy city street filled with cars and we were unlucky enough to be right in the path of that disgusting piece of shit.  My mom was able to slam on the brakes and come to an almost complete stop before we were struck.  

That accident is burned into my mind now.  When I close my eyes I can still see the image of the car hurdling towards us, I can taste and smell the burned rubber on the pavement and hear the squealing tires.  In the moments before impact, I honestly thought this is how I am going to die, my mom is going to die in front of me, I am going to be paralysed and never walk again…

When the dust cleared and I could see that my mother and I were not dead and both able to walk I completely lost my mind.  I had a huge adrenaline rush and kicked the door off the car in an effort to free myself from the crash.  I thought the dust from the air bag was smoke and that we were going to burn to death.  When I got out into the street in the middle of the city there were people standing all around taking pictures with their cell phones.  I snapped and started screaming obscenities, bystanders had to hold me back because I was going to go and smash the driver of the other car right in the face.  Thinking back on the incident I regret not being able to get my hands on him. Also, just to note: when someone is mad and you tell them to "calm down" it usually has the opposite effect.

Our car after the accident.


He was stumbling around drunk in the street.  Completely uninjured.  His passenger suffered a cut on her head.  They had been drinking in the car while they were driving.  The side of their vehicle was ripped open and there was booze all over the road.   

My mother wound up with a fractured sternum.  I ended up being cut by the seatbelt right across my stomach from hip to hip.  I now have hematomas under my skin that could require an operation to remove.  Those are just the worst of the physical injures.  The emotional scars are much deeper…


My stomach bruises


I'm recounting this incident for two reasons: a.) it helps me deal with my emotions around it when I talk about it and b.) I hope it can be seen as a learning experience and will influence others to see the DANGER of that behaviour.  

Never in a million years would I have thought that I'd be the victim of a drunk driver.  Now that I have suffered this experience I feel incredibly violated.  As a smart and socially conscious individual I make the decision NOT to drink and then get behind the wheel of my car.  It would be very easy for me to get wasted and then drive, I have a car, I live in a relatively rural area with little public transit and outrageous cab fares.  But I don't do it.  I wouldn't want to be caught and charged, I couldn't afford the insurance and a new car; most of all I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I hurt another individual.  

I have a number of choice words for the fucker who hit us; I went through a really dark time where I wished him nothing but pain and suffering.  He hurt me, he hurt my mom, I had to watch her lay in a stretcher and cry in the hospital because she was in pain.  I wanted to kill him.  Part of me still does, but I've been struggling to let it go.  Every day that I suffer and think about him he is still able to victimize me.  I have to come to a place where I can just let the justice system do its job and run its course.  I will testify in court if I have to (and I really hope that I will) because I want him to have to look at me and hear my story.  The decision that he made could have cost us our lives that night.  

Driving is a privilege.  We have a responsibility to everyone else on the road then we get behind the wheel of a car.  It is so easy to cause an accident when you are driving sober, not to mention drunk.  We got off so lucky that night, I am not a religious person, but I feel like there was some serious fate or something going on there.  I am well aware that it could be so much worse, and many other people have lost loved ones to the same sorts of accidents.  

I hope that reading this can influence at least one person to think before they act like a selfish bag of dicks and endanger innocent lives. If you don't have enough respect for your own life that you are willing to take that chance with it, please just throw yourself from a bridge and leave the rest of us, who enjoy being alive, alone to live our lives uninjured.  

I hope everyone is having a happy and above all SAFE summer.  

Sarah xox

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