Please

Yesterday, I was greatly saddened to hear that a friend of mine from school has been involved in a car crash and is in a serious condition in hospital. Details are unclear, but the person at fault appears to have been under the influence of drink and drugs. I have genuinely lost count of the number of young people I know who have been killed or seriously injured as a result of drink-driving.

I don't want to get on my high horse and say that everyone who chooses to drive a car after drinking alcohol should be instantly locked up for several years. Actually, that's a lie; that was exactly my instinctive reaction after hearing what had happened. But I feel it is more helpful to explain my feelings in this way:

A car is a lethal object. Operating a car requires responsibility and attentiveness at the best of times to minimise the risk of killing other humans. Drinking any quantity of alcohol before driving increases the risk of you killing other humans.

And yet people still do it. Why? Well, let's be very charitable and say that it's because of a lack of understanding of statistics. A lot of people drive after drinking, but only a relatively low proportion of these people will kill someone. But let me explain it this way, using a simplified model:

Take a typical pub with a car park. How many people will drive home from that pub after drinking? The number (for this theoretical pub) would depend on drink-drive statistics, but let's say 500 per year. Perhaps one of these people in a particular year kills somebody because they drove home after drinking. Does that leave us with one absolute twat and 499 innocent people? No. It leaves us with one unlucky absolute twat and 499 lucky absolute twats. I hope you don't find it too melodramatic of me to say that this situtation is like those 500 people collectively deciding to kill this one person. The statistics are out there. It's hardly a secret that 3,000 people are killed or seriously injured every year through drink-driving. And it's just a question of luck whether it's you or somebody else who ends up killing someone. So if you know these statistics, every time you drink and drive, you are taking a conscious decision to join a group of non-specific murderers. You don't know exactly how large the group is, you don't know exactly how big a role you are playing, and you have no idea who the victim will be, but you're still in the group. You're still, statistically and logically speaking, a murderer.

And yes, I'm sure you believe yourself to be a decent driver after a pint, or two, or even three. But are driving licences handed out on the basis of who believes themself to be a good driver? No. There's a rigorous and difficult test, which you probably didn't take under the influence of even half a pint.

Oh, and just to drag politics into this, the government has just decided not to reduce the legal limit for drivers' alcohol consumption, despite expert advice that doing so would save up to 300 lives per year, presumably as part of the Tories' stated (and apparently unironic) aim to "end the war on motorists". Yes, I quoted that accurately.

So, since we can't count on our leaders to act responsibly, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you, Big Society-style, to "do your bit": don't be a murdering dick. Don't drink and drive. Cheers.