True Stories Concerning Drinking and Driving |
| A 18 year-old boy, tells us a story about accidents caused
by competing on the road. "Twice a year, our school and the neighbouring school runs a competition called rounders. The girls from each school are in the teams, and the boys are called cheerboys. But the competition is not just about winning the game of rounders, it is a competition of honour. Often before the rounders, the teams from each school play practical jokes with each other. But sometimes the ridiculous games can get out of hand. The night before the competition, we had heard that the team from the other school had gathered at a place, and we decided to go there and see if we could do something to frighten them, or just play games with them. We had bought eggs to throw on them, it is a kind of a tradition between the teams. When we went to the place by car, we saw that some boys from the other teams also had cars, and we started a race. Though the drivers of the cars were not drunk, they lost control over themselves when the race began. All that mattered at the moment was that we won the race and the honour. I sat in the back of one car, and at first it was just fun. But after a while, a friend of mine who was driving another car, smashed into a brand new Mercedes. He did not hurt himself, but the situation afterwards was not much fun for him. We tried to block a car from the other school, but accidentally, he drove right into a fence nearby. The driver of our car got so shocked that he reversed the car and smashed the fenders and the lamps at the back. Now I became really frightened. There was nothing I could do to stop the driver, he got a kick out of driving and did not hear us. Now, a few days after the incident, I still do not know if I would have done anything in a different way, even if I know about the accidents. I guess honour has priority over sense." |