Underage Drinking and Driving
On Tuesday my boyfriend Andrew and I were going to look at a house for rent in Eland when a local kid came FLYING around a corner in a big old truck- nearly taking us out on his way- with his head hanging out the window. He narrowly missed my cr-v, swerving to miss us as I swerved to miss him. Immediately after we rounded the corner Andrew insisted I turn around because the kid had to be ‘in the trees.’ Sure enough. before I could stop the vehicle Andrew was out of it chasing down the fleeing youngster (who had just barely gotten his license) and yelling at him to stop running. He later told me he thought about grabbing him by the neck and shaking some sense into him, but decided the kid had been shaken up enough. all the kid could say was “you can’t tell anyone - Andrew don’t tell on me.” To our left stood the other young boy who rode shot gun simply staring at what once resembled a truck. Being the small town it is, immediately the scene was flooded with neighbors to take care of the situation. We noticed the drivers’ mother’s truck at the only bar in town and stopped to inform her of the accident. Then we continued on our way to look at the house. Upon our return we saw that there were now about 20 on lookers in shock and amazement at how these boys had lodged this huge truck in between those trees, as well as police on the scene. Since we had seen the accident we felt we should give a statement. As we walked up to the sheriffs car we could over hear the mother of the driver saying something about a breathalyser and then “he can’t go to jail, he’s only 16.” Drunk driving at 16! I was shocked. I mean at 23 I know better than to drink and drive. at 21 I knew better than to drink and drive. at 18, 17, 16, i knew better than to drink and drive. I guess a 16 year old drunk driver you can at least blame the ignorance on youth. Sad thing is: these children probably won’t learn a damned thing from this and continue a destructive path. They will get a slap on the wrist because we live in WI… a drinking state. and the parents? I can not say for sure, but i think they will under punish because they are just happy the kids are alive. They really should have died in that crash. Not that i am wishing death on them! definitely not, i am as happy as the next person to see them walk away from it. but the crumpled remainder of the vehicle tells you they should have died. Andrew, his father and some other farm help got a tractor, truck and trailer to get the wreck out of the trees for the family. Onlookers photographed the process. In the end, the fragmented truck sat on the 5th wheel trailer and we stared. Many things crossed my mind: ‘holy shit!’ ‘how did they get out of there?’ ‘what were they thinking?’ ‘they almost hit me…’ ‘remember when you rolled your truck?’ and in mid thought I looked over at the passenger who was lucky enough to be standing. and standing he was. Arms folded staring at the truck with a big grin on his face. knowing only two weeks earlier he had done the same thing to his father’s truck. to young to understand just how lucky they are to survive? Sadly next time they might not be so lucky. and then the entire small town will have a funeral to gather at. Or what if a child had been bicycling down that road, which often happens being a small country town. After the truck was pulled out there was about half a dozen beer cans left where the wreck had landed.
I found out yesterday that the 16 year old that nearly wrecked my new car because he was drunk driving only got an under age drinking violation. I just don’t understand how not giving him a DUI or OWi or whatever it is that he was doing is going to help him at all. I feel sheltering a child with this destructive behavior only lessens his chance of not becoming a repeat offender. I want to write angry letters to the DA about this.
Any opinions?
