Former Tide WR Henry Ruggs involved in fatal car accident, to be charged with DUI resulting in death

Not to you per se, but getting back to that idea that "if it saves one life it's worth it":
Alcohol Facts and Statistics | National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
Overdose Death Rates | National Institute on Drug Abuse

 

I don’t want everyone to take uber. I want everyone to use their freakin brain occasionally. I make plans that involve a sober driver every time, and it’s more often someone in my party than a third party service like uber, taxi, shuttle, etc. Its not that hard. People need to start making better decisions in general and stop depending on the government to protect them from themselves.

A bar having happy hour does not make you have a drink. That’s a personal decision. If you don’t have a ride, drink a freakin soda! It’s not my responsibility to figure out your plan for you. Why do you have to drink and why is it the government’s responsibility to make sure you don’t have access so you don’t make a stupid decision?

We have people who’ve been arrested 4-5 times for dui’s still out there driving around and haven’t spent more than a night in jail. Enforce the law. Stop letting people off easy. Someone above mentioned making you sit in jail for 30-90 days or something for first offense. I’m fine with that. If there are serious consequences, maybe people will make better choices. I’m for consequences for people who make bad decisions, not more restrictions for people who make good decisions.

 

Look. All I'm saying is there is what people should do and what people actually do. I've had this conversation with my parents who think weed is still worse than alcohol because of the stigma and conditioning they have known for most of their lives. I think many people would be surprised to see what their local bar district looks like around 1 or 2 am. The odor of alcohol is everywhere and every idiot is driving drunk, getting in fights, throwing up or passing out. At my age I can't stand being anywhere near a scene like that but it happens every Thursday through Saturday in my town. My job requires me to see it too often and what I described is not an exaggeration. I don't know the answer but I can tell you there isn't enough police to enforce the amount of drunk driving that goes on during busy nights. That doesn't even touch on large scale events like festivals, sports and concerts.

I don't know when DUI penalties got soft but I was under the impression it was around a 10k dollar hit plus a significant disruption in normal life between the initial arrest, lost license and therefore lost daily transportation as possible jail time and a record. For most productive members of society that is a significant hit but people still make the poor decision to do it every day.

 

Yeah, everybody makes mistakes. Everybody drives 156 mph in a corvette through a residential neighborhood while blitzed out of their mind to impress their girlfriend. Errybody.

 

How awful. She dies an agonizing death. He lives. There is no justice in this world.

 

The accounts I have heard do not mention her being conscious. The good Samaritan who tried to rescue her with an extinguisher said he could hear her breathing as the fire overwhelmed them. He said she was alive but whether he omitted the truth for the sake of the family or she really was unconscious I would rather believe she didn't suffer after the initial impact.

 

He’s “lucky” (or perhaps unlucky, he might say) that he was driving a Corvette, which means the engine was in the back.

 

Ironically that’s a nod to his best friend Rod Scott, a promising basketball player who was killed in a car accident on the way to a game during their senior year of high school. That’s why Ruggs held up 3 fingers every time he scored a TD. Rod’s gravestone is the banner on Ruggs’ Twitter page.

 

Say what? Ive never seen a Corvette with the engine in the back. Always under that long hood in the front.

 

They’re behind the seats in the newer Stingrays

 

I keep thinking that hopefully she snapped her neck in the impact. Locally we had a semi hit a compact car at a red light. The car was pushed to the other side of the road's shoulder and caught fire. Two young people in their early 20's died. They say their necks snapped from the impact. I know he wasn't driving a semi, but the semi wasn't going as fast as he was either.

So sad. I always watch now if I'm last on line at a red light. They have a video on TMZ, I couldn't watch it.

 

I did not know that.

 

Multiple witnesses who attempted to open her car door said she was screaming, so sadly it sounds like that wasn’t the case, and it sounds like her car doors were locked (as most doors do automatically when the car is cranked). Horrific.

 

Mind blowing. I’m no choir boy and before Uber I drove over the limit more than I would like to admit. But I would drive like a grandma in those situations. Being that loaded and driving that fast tells me this kid has zero common sense and is a danger to himself and others. Unconscionable to do what he did.

 

Some actions are so reckless that yes, they can be considered murder. Driving drunk at 150+ mph on surface streets is not that different than tossing a straight razor into an occupied crib.

 

Actually the engine in the front tends to protect you during head on impacts - being a huge mass of metal it resists movement and they are also engineered to drop down during severe impact, thus limiting the amount of energy that makes it back into your occupied space.

The new Corvettes, being mid engined, do not have much between the 'firewall' (now just a bulkhead) and any frontal impact. It is a miracle of engineering that the Rav4 did not punch right through into his passenger compartment.