How to Stop Your Friends From Drinking and Driving

Let’s be honest, it can be challenging keeping a friend, family member, or co-worker from making a decision like drinking and driving. After a couple of drinks, judgment can be impaired, and even when we think we are okay to drive, we may not be.

Oftentimes, it can be difficult to reason with a person under the influence who is insistent they are well enough to drive. But when the safety of your friends or family is on the line, you need all of the tools you can get to help them get home safely. At Donahue Law Firm in Bend, Oregon, we want to make sure that everyone on the road is safe.

While this isn’t always the most exciting job, it is the most responsible. By offering to be the DD for a friend, you are assuring their safety as well as your own. Ask the bartender if they could whip up a delicious non-boozy cocktail so you don’t feel like you’re missing out on all the fun. Next weekend, make your friend return the favor and be your designated driver!

If you have a friend over that gets too drunk, or you are out and about and see someone about to make a bad decision, offer to pay for their cab. While they might be angry about it in the moment, but they will thank you in the morning.

If you host a house or dinner party and see that a guest is particularly intoxicated, invite them to stay on your couch or in a spare bedroom. It’s much better to have someone stay at your house than leaving your house and getting in an accident or being charged with a DUII.

Admittedly this is a tricky one, especially when you have an extremely resistant person on your hands. At the beginning of the night, consider having a “sober agreement” about holding onto their keys.

If things intensify through the night, and you realize someone is incapable of driving, do whatever you can to take their keys, assuring them you care about them and don’t want them to get behind the wheel. Again, they will thank you later.

We all know that sometimes drinking can make people highly emotional. Trying to take that same person’s keys and refusing to let them drive can result in outright hostility. If this is the case, be sure to have another friend nearby that can help calm them down and ensure they don’t get behind the wheel.

Everyone is in charge of making their own choices, but by offering to help a friend, you are saving them trouble, money, and perhaps even their life or someone else’s.

We hope it doesn’t come to this, but if you or someone you know needs a DUII lawyer, have them contact the team at Donahue Law Firm. Location in Bend, we fight hard to protect your rights. Learn more about our DUII services here and try to stay safe out there.