To Whichever Drunk Driver It May Concern…

DEAR FUCKWIT, How many dead bodies will it take? How many ruined lives do we need to add up before the numbers start to take effect on you? In case you missed it, there were 8 more road deaths this weekend, just like every bloody weekend; but do you care?

I read a story recently that claimed the cops are making on average over 400 drink-driving related arrests per week here in Ireland. I’ll bet you didn’t realise that. Even after all the advertising campaigns, after lowering the limit so much it’s hardly relevant anymore (one drink is enough!), after the seemingly endless weekly lists of road deaths… there are  still over 400 of you dumb fuckers who insist on drinking, then turning yourself into a weapon on the roads, every fucking week.

WTF is wrong with you people? What will it take to get through to you?

It’s a simple enough formula… drink + drive = death. Simple as that, and yet over 400 of your stupid bastards are out there on the roads every single week, causing mayhem and destruction. Jesus H, it’s not as if you are brilliant drivers when you’re sober for fucks sake. What the hell makes you think you can do it better when drunk? That’s 400 who get caught every week… just how many of you are getting away with it I wonder?

When you get behind that wheel you are making a conscious choice to do so. You are in effect committing an act of terrorism, albeit a localised one. You turn yourself into destructive weapon which can – and does – kill, maim and ruin lives almost every day of the week. You, my druknen friend, are a murderer. And all it would take to change that is for you to just get a bus, grab a taxi, take a lift or friggin’ walk home instead of getting in that car.

So my drunken friend I’ve decided to apply some chaos thinking to this problem and I believe I’ve come up with a potentially workable solution, however there is something you need to know first…

The problem is that there is no real deterrent – you fuckers think you are invincible with a few beers on yez. Loosing your license is not tough enough. Prison time is not tough enough. You should in fact be charged with murder – pure and simple, but you’re not. When you knowingly get behind the wheel of a car, when you are over the limit and you then end up killing someone in the process – that’s murder, and the penalties should follow suit.

But they don’t. And you know it. And you continue to risk your life and the lives of those around you every week. Well my drunken friend I’ve some news for you…

There are several problems here which need to be addressed. Let’s start with your drinking shall we? The latest survey from Europe finds that Ireland tops the scale for binge drinking, across all of Europe; now there’s something to be proud of isn’t it? I’m guessing that’s you by the way, a binge drinker. Someone with no sense of moderation. That tells me you lack balance, so a reasoned approach with you won’t work.

There is however another statistic which really says something about you. It seems that 96% of people in Malta have no actual idea what the legal drink driving limit is. You on the other hand know full well that one drink is enough to put you over the limit and yet you go ahead and get in that car anyway. That tells me you are not just stupid – you are selectively ignorant, which means an educational approach won’t work on you either.

I also know that the authorities are trying to deal with things, and there has been a suggestion that setting up a special court for ‘impaired driving related offences’ will help speed up things and free up cops on the beat to do more important work than baby sit you in court, but it’s not enough. Most of the time you just sit there and laugh at them, behind your legal aid solicitors or your expensive barristers. That tells me the legal route is not likely to make any difference to you either.

So basically a new approach is required. A more stringent deterrent is needed Something that would scare you people shitless, something so nasty that it couldn’t possibly ever be worth taking a drink and then getting behind the wheel of your car again. Ever.

But what kind of deterrent would work on you? Well you see chaos thinking has it’s uses, and I’ve applied literally seconds of hard thought to the topic and come up with a viable solution, and I just think you should know about it before you put yourself in harms way again.

You have already proven that graphic ad campaigns are useless. Pictures of crashes and news items of the damage done to families hasn’t worked either. Penalty points on your license hasn’t worked. Loosing your license entirely doesn’t seem to put you fuckers off for one second. So what will make you sit up and take notice then? What is it that will finally make you so scared of the possibility of getting caught that you will literally shit yourself at the prospect?

I’m thinking there could be an opening here for the lads in the balaclavas. Since peace broke out they’ve really been struggling to find a role in the community, but this presents a perfect blend of rough justice and community service for them I reckon. When the lads held sway up North, no one dared cross the line, because they knew what would happen if they did. That same clarity is perhaps required here too and let’s face it the drugs business is just too much hassle for them these days; sure some of them are almost on the breadline so they will probably be well up for the challenge of sorting this little problem out, for a fee of course.

It’s rather hard to drive when you’ve been kneecapped; and that’s just a love tap for a first offence. Imagine what these lads will do if you actually kill someone on the roads.

A dark night, a baseball bat or two, some rusty nails and a ‘chat‘ with some motivated balaclava boys would do wonders for you fuckers wouldn’t it? Three months is all it would take to get this whole thing sorted. Three months of like-for-like and I’m betting no one would ever take the risk again. Road deaths would drop dramatically. The 400 or so arrests for drink-related driving would practically vanish over night.

Legal? No.

Effective? Hell Yeah.

Next time you stumble towards your car after a few too many, and you fumble around in your pocket for your keys… I suggest you look over your shoulder before you open that car door. You never know who might be waiting for you to have a little ‘chat‘.