No glamour in driving drunk

Phumla Matjila: DUI or DWI, it doesn't matter what you call it, drunk driving is a serious crime. And all it takes is a couple of drinks to break the law.

And when you are caught in the act, it is a sobering moment . The fortunate will only have been pulled over by the metro police. Others are not so fortunate and for them the cost might be great - and, for the truly haunted, final.

Sadly, those who will never drink and drive again are few.

They are the lucky people who, while trapped inside a contorted vehicle with death knocking on the door, make a promise not to drink again if they survive the accident - and never again have so much as a whiff of alcohol after that.

Others who are lucky are those who get into a car poep dronk and wake up in hospital with no feeling in their legs and one hand cuffed to the bed. In a moment of clarity, they remember the family whose car they knocked off the bridge the night before. In that moment of HD vision, they make a pact that if get out of hospital alive, and they are not thrown in prison, they will never drink and drive again.

The unlucky ones, however, are many and dead. According to Arrive Alive, half of the people killed on our roads have a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit.

Then there are the haunted: drivers who, in a drunk-driving stupor, have killed or harmed people - but instead of forswearing alcohol, continue drinking - because it's the only way they can drive without seeing the ghosts of the people they've killed.

Then there's the last group of people, who make up the majority of people who drink and drive.

This group has been getting away with drunk driving for so long that they are convinced they are more cautious when drunk than when sober.

They believe they are the exception to the rule that driving is impaired when you have a blood-alcohol level of above 0.05g per 100ml.

The way the entertainment industry glamorises drunk driving is especially sickening.

There are even "Top 10" lists that showcase celebrity offenders according to various criteria - from the most expensive car used to commit the crime to the youngest and most good-looking offenders. Drunk driving is portrayed as nothing more than bad behaviour.

But, as the Arrive Alive statistics show, drunk driving kills.

Sadly, as Swiss-French writer Madame de Staël wrote: "We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love."

It is people who have lost loved ones because of drunk driving, or who know people who have been devastated by this irresponsible behaviour, who see it for the crime it is.

In what was by far the most riveting season of the US reality show Celebrity Apprentice - which we only watched after the fact, more than a year after its US premier - host and executive producer Donald Trump exposed the foulness of drunk driving among celebrities.

Season 8, which was broadcast on M-Net Series and ended at the beginning of this month, will be remembered more for shining the spotlight on drunk driving and alcohol abuse by celebrities than for the amount of money raised.

Trump fired reality star Khloe Kardashian, who missed a task because she had to appear before a judge for missing court-ordered alcohol-education classes, which were part of her punishment for driving under the influence.

Trump, who said that he was not aware of Kardashian's DUI charge , said he had friends whose family members had been killed by drunk drivers. He fired Kardashian for choosing the reality programme over her classes intended to correct her criminal behaviour.

Closer to home, Everton star Steven Pienaar has been banned from driving in England for failing to complete an alcohol-awareness course. It is a serious offence warranting a hefty sentence.

Contrast Pienaar's lifelong ban with judge Nkola Motata's fine of R20000 last year for drunk driving, this after he spent about R1-million in legal fees.

There's nothing glamourous about drunk driving - as Trump made so forcefully evident.