Get a designated driver, or kindly die.

I know 'tis the season of peace on earth, good will toward men and all that, but I'm finding myself full of frustration, anger, and hatred. One of my friends was critically injured by a drunk driver this weekend. This is a girl from the east coast who has had a hard time adjusting to the social scene, weather, and general atmosphere of Utah--and then she gets hit by a drunk driver. It's maddening.

It sounds like after a period of recovery, eventually she will be OK. There could be worse outcomes. But there could be better outcomes when it comes to drunk drivers.

The best option is for DUIs not to happen at all, that those who drink will get a taxi or have a designated driver. Or that they don't drink at all. This one happens all the time, fortunately.

The second best option is that the drunk driver drives into a ditch or something, or that they get arrested, and it shames them so that they turn their lives around and don't do it again. Like Michael Phelps.

The third best option is that the drunk driver crashes and dies. If they think it's OK to drink and drive, and if someone has to die, it had better be the one doing the reckless behavior. Far too often, though, the drunk driver is just fine, while the innocent bystander is the one who is injured (like my friend) or killed. On the rare occasions when I see that the drunk driver is seriously injured or killed, I am relieved and think "Good riddance." My sister has said you can't be happy about it, because it's someone's brother or daughter or something. It's tragic either way, but I think I would rather have a dead relative than a murderous one.

I get very impatient with people who do bad things. I don't know about you, but I have gotten through life just fine without ever drinking and driving, robbing people, using or selling drugs, or murdering. When people do these things, I hope something happens to them that makes their lives miserable. Then it occurred to me that people are probably doing these things because they already have miserable lives.

I have tried to be a bit more compassionate to those who make mistakes. But please let me indulge in some malicious wishes for things that happen to drunk drivers:

• If we lived in a wizarding world, and if someone drove with an open container, I would hope the alcohol would become sentient and grow into a monster. The liquidy monster would develop limbs that would safely drive the car off the road, then take the driver out of the car and eat them alive.
• This is an idea I got from a dream once. Put handcuffs on the person, then attach a chain to the handcuffs, and then attach the other end of the chain to a train. Then have the train take off.
• Have their eyes gouged out so they can never drive again, and their fingers or hands chopped off so they can never hold a drink again.
• Years ago, my brother proposed this idea. If someone drives home drunk, they must not exceed 25 mph, and they must put a green light on their car to indicate to other drivers that they are driving slow and drunk. And if they exceed 25 mph, or if they fail to put the green light on, they will be executed. I like this idea, especially the execution part.
• Tell them it would be better if they'd never been born.
• This is the most realistic and charitable: Make more severe legal penalties for drinking and driving. Too many people get a DUI and then are back on the road again soon. They should be charged almost with first-degree felonies and have bail denied. For real. And then they must get help for their alcoholism, with more penalties for not doing so.

A few years ago, there was a news story of a woman who was driving drunk, and the police tried to pull her over, but instead she sped off. So they spiked all her tires, and she was still driving off! So then they blocked her car in with multiple police vehicles, and she was still trying to get away! So one officer shot her, and she lost her eye. Some people, including the drunk woman, later thought it was an incidence of police brutality. But when the police literally did every nonviolent thing they could to prevent her from going off and killing some innocent bystander, what did they expect them to do? If she was being so reckless, she deserves to have one eye. She deserves to have no eyes!

I understand that the vast majority of alcohol use does not end up in drunk driving. But by its very definition, all drunk driving begins with alcohol. I want to foster a culture where alcohol is not viewed favorably, just as cigarettes are increasingly less acceptable. I'm not saying we should bring back Prohibition or tell people not to drink or even not sell alcohol (though personally, if I owned a store, I would not sell alcohol, because I wouldn't want DUI deaths on my conscience). I just want to make it so that people choose for themselves that they don't want or need to drink.

Much of what I have said in this post has been emotionally charged (obviously) and hyperbolic. But I just hope that in my little corner of the internet, I can make people realize how uncool and unacceptable it truly is to drink and drive. I want people to have guilt trips to make better decisions and vow never to do it.

But if you have a tendency to drink and drive, and you think it is OK, and you have no intention to change, then it would be better if you were dead.

And I say that with zero hyperbole.