Distracted, Drunk, Drugged, and Drowsy Driving

In the year 2009 alone, there was an estimated 11 thousand fatalities involved in alcohol related crashes, according to Alcoholalert.com.

Katelyn Johnson was driving with her mom in September of 2008, when their car collided with another car, because the driver was under the influence of alcohol.

“Because of his selfishness and poor judgment, I lost all sight in my left eye. When he hit our car, he t-boned the side I was sitting on; the passenger’s side, going nearly 60 mph in a 35 mph. This caused my window to shatter and a shard of the glass from the window went straight through my eye,” Johnson said, “it makes me sick knowing that people are still out there driving under the influence and are even texting and talking on the phone while driving. People don't realize that it only takes not even a second of being distracted to risk your life as well as the life of others.”

This week Utah State University has been promoting student and staff awareness of, “Distracted, Drunk, Drugged, and Drowsy Awareness Week.”

A display is located on the second floor of the Taggart Student Center with facts revolving around the myths with drinking and driving. There are also stories of lost loved ones due to distracted, drugged, drunk or drowsy driving, also known as DDDD.

Ryan Barfuss is the program director for the Student Health and Wellness Center at USU. He has put on several events regarding the DDDD campaign to create an awareness of the dangers involved in incoherent driving, especially with the developing risk of texting while driving.

“I don’t think we hear enough about all the issues that could affect students while driving. We hear about a few DUI’s on campus and texting and driving is always a huge issue… Texting while driving is very hard to enforce. It comes back to us personally, if we do it we know we’ll get in trouble but we should not being doing it because it’s the safe thing,” Barfuss said.

Anna Swenson was asleep at her home, on the morning of Oct. 7, 2007, when a drunk driver fell asleep at the wheel and hit her house, literally shaking her awake. The driver was fine and no damage was done excluding the section of the house run-in by the car that then had to be replaced.

There have been multiple stories of such acts that have been committed to do careless driving. Texting while driving has become the new form of drunk-driving because it makes a person just as disabled as alcohol does, according to a study done by Car and Driver magazine

“I texted and drove when I was in high school,” said, Michael Rushton a junior at USU, “but I got older and more mature and can see the negative effects it has on driving. I was lucky to not have gotten in an accident.”

“Every time we drive we don’t plan for problems and when we don’t plan to prevent them things happen. We make those choices that put us at risk,” Barfuss said.