I usually enjoy irony – but this one was anything but, especially with the holiday season approaching.

A little under two weeks ago, a North Carolina teenager who had done her high school senior project last year on drunk driving was killed by a drunk driver not that much older than her.

Shannon Nicole Adkins, 18, graduated last spring after turning in a report about the risks facing young drivers on the mainly rural roads of Johnston County. She was the 27th local teen to die in a wreck since the start of 2006 and the second in just more than a week (Source: here).

Whatever one might think about alcohol, drunk driving is irresponsible. No one should ever operate something as dangerous as a car when impaired, be it by alcohol, fatigue or even by a bunch of friends shouting and singing in the backseat while the sound system is blaring.

Repeating statistics and relating stories might have decreased somewhat the number of people sitting behind the wheel impaired, but it is going to take a deep change in the way we view each other to eliminate them altogether. Until we see each other as more than a stranger, we won’t care much for the other. For example, imagining each woman as someone’s daughter, wife, sister etc. that we are endangering with our reckless behavior might make us think twice about driving while impaired. Would you want someone putting your loved one at risk?

Didn’t think so.