Charlie Daniels - 2004 Soapbox Archives

2004 Soap Box Archives

Insanity 03/22/04

I’ll have to admit that in my young, wild days I drove an automobile under the influence of alcohol. I had some close calls. I remember waking up one night on the wrong side of the road with an oncoming car blowing their horn at me, hitting the back of another car on a snowy night in Washington, DC, driving up on the curb and all manner of near misses.

In fact, if not for the mercy of Almighty God, I wouldn’t even be here to tell about it. I never had a fatal accident but I came so close that it’s scary to think about it now.

Although those experiences were many long years ago I still want to apologize to every citizen of this nation for putting you and your loved ones in peril. I ask forgiveness from every parent or grandparent who has ever lost a child to a drunk driver, to everyone who has ended up in a wheelchair due to someone driving under the influence, to America at large, I say I am truly sorry.

Even in the impetuous and irresponsible days of early youth what on earth makes us think we can get behind the wheel of a lethal weapon and operate it safely when our brains are impaired by alcohol?

“Oh I’ve only had a couple, I can handle it, give me the keys.” How many times have these words been said by someone who would a few minutes later cause the death of an innocent person or persons?

I know that we all think that we know our capacity for alcohol.
that we know our limit. But in so many fatal cases we deceive ourselves. It only takes one mistake, a momentary lessening of
our attention to the road, a tiny misreading of oncoming traffic, a split second failure of timing the brakes and we can wreak havoc and heartbreak that is final and irreparable.

Beside the road in Durango, Colorado there sits a totally mangled car on a trailer with a caption which reads, “It took six teenagers to stop one drunk.”

Think about it. Is having a couple of drinks on the way home from work or one extra glass of wine with dinner worth the risk of
having something like this happen?

Are a couple of extra beers at the picnic worth the chance you take when you get behind the wheel?

And what about your own family, the sons and daughters who ride in the back seat with complete trust in mommy and daddy to get them safely home?

The drunk driving problem has reached pandemic proportions in America and with every picture of a fatally wrecked car in the newspaper there is another picture we don’t see of a family in pain grieving the senseless loss of a loved one, slaughtered by
someone who thought that they could handle the drinks they’ve had.

The police around the country are tightening up on drunk drivers. If you get caught driving under the influence the least that’s going to happen to you is a major hassle and in most cases at least one night in jail.

There are a lot of bad things which happen in this country that we can’t do anything about but drunk driving is not one of them.

It starts with personal responsibility. Nobody is going to force you to get behind the wheel with too much alcohol in your system.

Driving drunk is insanity, just don’t do it.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

P.S. My thanks to MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers for forcing the collective attention of America to this devastating problem.