The drunk in the ravine

I was outside cutting some roses at about 3 pm yesterday when I heard the sound of an engine racing, followed by some scraping, bumping sounds.  I looked across the yard just in time to see a Toyota Prius flying across our neighbors' yard and then bumping down an undeveloped easement between our property and theirs.  At first I thought it was teenagers, testing the limits of their car to see if they could make it to the bottom of the hollow and back up the other side, and my second thought was that this was a Prius, and that no one in their right mind would do that.

Once the car came to a stop at the bottom of the hollow, I ran over to make sure no one had been seriously injured.  A lone driver, a woman about my age, got out of the car and introduced herself.  She was completely unflustered, which flustered me, but she was unhurt and said she was just going to call her husband if she was unable to drive back out the way she'd  careened in.  She attempted to turn the car around (that's when I snapped this pic) but without 4WD could not do much more than spin her wheels in the dirt and brush.

So while she waited for her husband, we stood around and chatted, and that was when I smelled the alcohol on her breath.  She explained she'd been at a canasta party at the Newcomer's Club, which was being hosted by a resident up the street, and had not been paying attention when she missed the turn and went off-road down the canyon.  

And it was here I faced my dilemma of whether to let her and her husband solve the problem or involve the CHP.  Eventually I opted to call CHP and let them take down an accident report, in case our neighbors' property had been damaged in any way.  I also did not like the thought of them successfully getting her car back on the road and her driving home, as she lived about 30 miles away and had, after all, been drinking.  I figured the CHP could better ascertain her sobriety than I could.

Living in wine country, we see buzzed driving all the time, although not usually in our specific neighborhood.  There's no question that wine tasting is to this area what slot machines are to Vegas -- a ubiquitous, regular part of life.  And I can imagine how tempting it would be to attend an afternoon event and, without a designated driver in tow, give in to the temptation to kick back and have a couple of glasses of vino.

But a few minutes after I called the CHP (and was feeling guilty about it) a young mother and her two kids walked up the road to see what was happening.  It turned out her 10 year-old son had been just off the street when the woman blew by him, and said she was traveling at a high rate of speed. And I realized that this boy would have been in danger had he actually been in the street, instead of off to the side of the road.  And then I felt less guilty about calling the incident in.  

Because whether you are a resident or a tourist, and whether you fit a profile of what we normally think of as a buzzed driver, if you hit the road after any significant amount of wine tasting, you're breaking the law and endangering your friends and neighbors.  And if you're serving up that wine tasting, even if it's in the comfort of your home, you still have a responsibility to not allow buzzed people to hit the road after your little soiree.

There will thankfully be no permanent grief caused by this little incident; no one was injured (except the Prius, which got towed away) and in time the tire tracks and scrape marks down the hill will grow over.  But it was a powerful lesson for our household that the designated driver rule is always a good one, whether you're 21 or 51, especially here in wine country, where the good reds flow and you can't throw a rock without hitting a wine tasting party of some sort or other.