Amber Alert, Drunk Driving and Hugging my Family

In the New York tri-state, people are horrified learning about a Long Island woman who drove on the wrong side of the Taconic highway (to be clear, there's a large grassy highway divider between the sides) and caused a head-on collision that killed her, her daughter, her three nieces, and three men in the other car.  Today, the news announced she was both drunk and high. 

Jonathan Fickies for The New York Times

Apparently six drivers called the police prior to the crash to report the wrong-way driving.  Unfortunately, nothing was able to stop Diane Shuler.  Her brother even offered to pick her up and asked her not to drive - she ignored him.

I've been hosting 4 teenage girls this week for the JCC Maccabi games and yesterday, while driving, we started talking about...driving.  The route from Half Moon Bay to our home is a great drive - for experienced drivers.  It led to a conversation about the responsibility and dangers of driving.  I was surprised that some parents (none of the parents of these girls) actually sign off that their child has 50 hours supervised driving experience when they haven't done it.  Makes me wish there was a penalty for stupid parenting. 

I wonder if Amber Alerts could tell drivers to exit a road immediately because of a dangerous driver.  My athletes tell me that they're shown the drunk driving videos in driver's ed - but can they imagine how the families of those victims are devastated by an absurdly irresponsible choice.  How do we make that real for our children so that they never choose to drive impaired or get in the car with an impaired driver?

I am thankful for the health and safety of my loved ones today - extra hugs for everyone tonight.