My drive home from work is only 8 1/2 miles, yet last night it took close to 1 1/2 hours to get home.   It was even worse for several people I know in the office who didn’t get home until 8pm and 8:30pm, and that was only a drive of 14 miles.

The problem last night was on the motorway close to work, where a woman fell from a bridge onto the road, plus about 5 or 6 miles further up the road where two trucks collided.   The whole motorway system therefore came to a grinding halt for 10 or more miles around.   

Unfortunately, the city of Southampton is sandwiched between the South Coast of England and the River Itchen, and the motorways run from the southeast, north around the city and off to the west.   So, if the motorways all get snarled up, people come off looking for an alternative route, and that leads them onto the regular roads that are already heavy with traffic for most of the day.   The regular “A” roads around here are more often than not only 1 lane in each direction as well, so it doesn’t take much to cause major holdups where the roads cross others, or where they cross the river.

Since I work to a fixed timetable (the buzzer sounds at 5pm and everyone rushes out at the same time to head home), there isn’t much I can do to avoid the rush hour, and given the location of the office, I don’t have many alternatives as to the route I take to get home.   So, like thousands of others last night, I just sat in traffic and listened to the radio.

Hopefully tonight will be better, but as soon as it gets dark and wet here in England, everything slows right down.  The one big consolation is that I drive an automatic, so I didn’t have to spend 90 minutes with my foot on and off the clutch at least.

Please Drink Responsibly: The DUI Foundation Can Help!

Have you ever been effected by an alcohol related accident? There are hundreds of thousands of alcohol related accidents every year. Thousands of people are seriously injured or killed in them. Regardless of the role you play, if you are involved in an accident caused by a drunk driver, your life will most certainly change.

Everyone associated as being on the victim’s side of a DUI accident is likely to experience a combination of pain and suffering, expensive medical and legal costs, mental anguish, irreversible physical damage or early death. The drunk driver is likely to experience injury, medical and legal costs, fines, jail time, community service, unemployment, guilt, depression, exclusion from activities (thus become a social outcast) or early death.

No lawyer or decision in a court of law can make the accident go away. Once it happens, the consequences must be dealt with. Seeking help from a lawyer or friends and family afterwards is expensive, time consuming, emotionally draining, and basically just a way to minimize the damage caused by the accident while the effects remain anyway. The only way to avoid the effects of a DUI incident is to prevent it from happening to begin with.

When you are out drinking and having a good time, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment, throw caution to the wind, and just wing it. This usually means someone that has been drinking winds up driving home. There are many forms of alternative transportation. We should help each other make the right decision. In the end, we can save lives and taxpayer dollars by reducing the number of drunk drivers on the road.

With the help of the DUI Foundation, we can educate ourselves, our friends and our families on the consequences of drinking and driving and prevent them from happening. The DUI Foundation website offers tons of educational information about driving under the influence of alcohol. They offer information about support groups in your area that can help you, a friend or a loved one with an alcohol related problem. Their New York DUI Attorney page offers free legal information that is similar to the information you would receive from a lawyer. For example, you can find state-by-state legal DUI limits, fines and penalties based on the nature of the incident, and whether it’s a first, second or third offense, etc. Whether you are looking for education, or in need of real help, the DUI Foundation is there to provide it from people that care. It is the mission of the DUI Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, to educate and prevent DUI incidents before they happen by offering free information and support. For more information, please visit DUIFoundation.org.

Written by Joseph Torrillo for the DUI Foundation