Alcohol can be an enigma. Taken in moderation, it can be a good friend but if we let it take control it can be a monster that shatters lives. This week a ruling handed down in the New South Wales District court illustrated that point.
A thirty-one year old man was sentenced to serve a fifteen year prison sentence for an act of sheer stupidity that happened in 2018. He pleaded guilty to two charges of manslaughter and one charge of aggravated dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm. The term of the sentence ensures he will spend ten years behind bars before he becomes even eligible for consideration for parole.
At the trial, the court heard that he had been drinking and playing the poker machines in a St Mary's hotel from 10 am until 6-45 pm on September 28, 2018. He then got in his car and commenced a six kilometre journey to his home., despite having no license to drive on NSW roads.
Witnesses testifies that he was driving erratically and at high speed and it is estimated that he was travelling at 112 k/mh in a 60 k/mh zone when he hit the medium strip, became airborne and crashed headlong into an oncoming vehicle.
The impact killed both a 23 year old woman, due to give birth to twin boys in the next week, her 17 year old learner drive relation and seriously injured the father of the unborn twins. The medical examiners report at this trial revealed that the convicted driver had a blood/alcohol of 0.204 at the time of the crash.
Obviously, by taking his car to the hotel, this man intended to drive home and that decision wiped out another family. The court is usually unsympathetic when a relatively cheap cab fare would have eliminated that crash risk entirely.
In this case, it must have been obviously apparent to the driver that he was in no condition to drive, so for the next ten years he will be deprived of the comfort of his own family and his work skills will deteriorate. Whatever hope he had for a comfortable old age will vanish as his nest egg of superannuation ceases to grow. Life in prison is deemed a misery because it is a punishment for wrong doing. He will be forced to associate with companions he would not choose to be his friends.
To the victims family those deaths were a tragedy. They are gone forever because of the reckless action of a man abusing alcohol. Reading such reports in the newspapers must give a twinge of conscience to many people who remember driving home when their blood alcohol content would have exceeded the 0.05 that is legal in New South Wales.
People who instantly dismiss the idea that they are committing a criminal act continue to drive above 0.05 by persuading themselves that they will be " very careful ". In most cases they will arrive home safely, but should the " unexpected " happen they could have a death on their conscience.
That man who crashed with a blood alcohol reading of 0.204 was extreme but the risk factor rises sharply once we pass that 0.05 level because alcohol plays with our brain chemistry to convince us we are invincible. We need to set the limit before the first glass rather than make that decision when alcohol is part of the thinking process.
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