Convenient Time To Talk About Drunk Driving

 

Above is a comment posted by yours truly at WIBW beneath a story about an auto wreck near Frankfort, Kansas that involved alcohol. The fact that alcohol was a factor curiously did not appear in the story, but because Frankfort Kansas is such a "closeknit" community, (description borrowed from the author of the adversarial response) your faithful blogger was made aware, along with, probably, everyone else within a fifty mile radius, of the fact that alcohol was involved. So....since four young people, three of whom still attend Frankfort High School and one graduate, still under twenty-one, nearly got themselves killed while unlawfully combining substance abuse with the use of everyone's roads and highways, how is it that no one here in Northeast Kansas is talking about substance abuse among minors?

The three high school students mentioned represent at least five percent of Frankfort's high school students. Two of them are, or were, seniors. (is the principal still collecting enrollment dollars for these children, even though they obviously cannot attend school at the moment? Seems the dollar mill should be shut down for the moment, here) Since the senior class at Frankfort is not very big, this represents about fifteen percent of the graduating class at Frankfort. Of the remaining children who have either not been arrested yet or were not involved in this incident, there is only one child in attendance at Frankfort High School who does not drink, bringing the percentage of the students who drink up to about ninety-nine percent. These totals are a bit high, and compare unfavorably to the rest of the nation, where this kind of stuff runs an average of about seventeen percent of high school students who abuse drugs and alcohol daily. In a place with smaller numbers of students, one incident can bring per capita percentages up in ways that make statistics reflect awkwardly on the population. The lone student who does not drink usually serves as a designated driver, despite the fact that the law prohibits this type of enabling and prohibits alcohol and drug use by any child on probation, which is the unfortunate circumstance of one of the children in the accident.

That is the response left by someone who apparently feels that the problems caused by drunk teens should be addressed at a later date, at the convenience of the offender, if at all. This person is not concerned in the slightest about what criminals put their victims through; only the problems encountered by the drunk teenager and the enablers. It's okay to judge and bully anyone whose culture or lifestyle is a little different from that of the average Frankfurter, but not a child who causes traffic accidents by drinking and driving. How much mercy does the writer of this comment show the victims of these children and their enablers? By all appearances, not any. Along with very little comprehension of the language chosen for the comment, there is also not any comprehension of the fact that, while not everyone in the community was involved in the accident, everyone who drives on the highway shares the road with everyone else. That makes the problem of teens who drive drunk everyone's problem, not just the problem of those directly affected by one particular traffic mishap. As for Frankfort's description of being a "close knit town" creating an environment wherein "age is not an issue", federal law trumps this notion, along with the state laws of the very state that hosts this "close knit town". Anyone who buys alcohol for a fifteen year old commits a crime. If the person who wrote this comment does not like that, she should consider moving to another country. No one has a right to allow his or her children to inflict drug and alcohol abuse, and the accompanying pathos, onto anyone else's children. 

This is not the first time your blogger has heard howls and cries from Frankfort about her opinion of underage drinking and underage drinking coupled with driving. The spouse of one of Frankfort's teachers, upon hearing that the police were summoned when some drunk children drove on the sidewalk one evening, actually put in an appearance on the doorstep here to defend her son's right to drink and drive. The fact that this involved the family of a teacher at Frankfort High School truly spoke volumes. If the teachers at the Frankfort High School fail to teach their children to not to drink and drive, how can children from others schools safely interact with either the teachers or the students at Frankfort?