Love someone enough - take the keys away

I got to Missoula on Tuesday. The newspaper still had front page headlines about a tragic accident on Saturday. An (allegedly) drunk driver went off the road, running over four teenage girls walking well away from the pavement. Two were killed. Two were injured and even if those are minor, they are scarred for life.
Many questions to be answered of course; one of mine was 'why were they walkng along the highway, at 11:45 at night, 14 and 15 year olds?' My Missoula connection, Stephen's girlfriend Chelsey, said it is a common practice, to get from school or social functions in town to what is known as East Missoula, just the other side of the river/interstate.
One article reported that the man said he was on his cell phone, and that he felt the rumble strips that warn a motorist who is drifting off the roadway - there are no rumble strips on that stretch of highway, btw. The article also said that he stayed, he even helped one girl into his truck while waiting for help (if it said who called, I don't remembber). Of course we in EMS know that he probably should not have moved the girl, without knowing what her injuries were, but that's another story.
Today there is a girl's basketball game, with their team playing without four of their usual nine players. Two will never play again. A memorial service is planned for after it, for them.
We've had our share of these tragedies in Chatham, three since 2001 with the New Year's Eve crash about 2 minutes into the year that killed one star athelete and left another in a wheelchair for life. All 4 in the car had been drinking at a party hosted by people who as yet have not been publically revealed. The driver was waiting for his trial for a previous dwi. This accident led to the passage of 'Sean's Law' in NYS, which takes their driving license away from people in that situation. Hopefully it will save lives.
Another crash, just a few weeks before Christmas a few years later, left a football player dead. He and the driver had been at a party. The next day a car was at the gas station by the traffic light, with messages to him painted on it - one said 'We love you Scooby'.
When Stephen and I were talkng about this the other night I said that all I could think was that nobody loved him enough to take the keys away from the driver.
Sadly, it all too frequently is not the drunken driver who is the one injured or killed. It is a passenger or as in the case here in Missoula, completely innocent persons who all to often are the victims.
So, let's all do it. Let's love someone enough to take the keys away.
Make someone's New Year happier.