Posted by In the next few days, family and friends across the country will gather for some amazing Thanksgiving festivities. But this is also a time when folks go out on the town with friends and visiting guests for the enjoyment of an alcoholic beverage or 7. Indeed, the days surrounding Thanksgiving have become some of the most popular days for consuming large amounts of alcohol.
If you’re like so many Americans, your post-binging drive home to your suburban dwelling can be an incredibly dangerous journey. If you’ve planned ahead with a designated driver, or called an Uber, cheers to you. But DD’s are hard to come by, and a round trip Uber from even the nearer suburbs can cost $50 and up. So many Americans will, unfortunately, make the choice to drive home after a long day of heavy alcohol consumption. The more remote your home, the greater the chance that impaired driving will either lead to a crash, or a DWI.
Me? I live in a relatively dense area on the south side of Rochester. No, I’m not in downtown, but I’m a stone’s throw away from several major bus routes. I am an $15 round-trip Uber ride to downtown. I can take a cheap bike to the bars and leave it there if I have one too many. Most importantly, I can walk home if I need to. I have a bevy of non-illegal, much safer options that will take me home after a long day/night of alcoholic consumption.
Of course, the best choice is simply to drink responsibly or not at all. But even if you make this better choice, you will undoubtedly share the road with an increased number of people who have made the wrong choice, and the farther you have to drive to get home wherever you are, the greater the number of those drivers you will potentially encounter.
This isn’t rocket science, it’s simply a reminder to all of us that city life can, in many ways, be a safer place to live during Holidays like this one. More transportation options and less exposure to impaired drivers on the road make living centrally infinitely safer.