This has nothing to do with driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol; it’s about driving while under the influence of some extreme emotional state, or while under the delusion that your reflexes are a lot faster than they really are, and that therefore, if faced with a dangerous situation, you’ll be able to stop viewing the news on your laptop, stop texting with one hand and putting your lipstick on with the other, and actually gain control of your vehicle before you become a statistic.
In this case, it’s about extreme emotional states. As an animal lover, I’m on the email list from a couple of animal-related sites, one of which is www.petplace.com. This is a very good site with veterinary information, explaining pet diseases, conditions, and treatments in some detail. Yesterday they sent me an email entitled “Harsh Words: “It’s JUST a dog…Get another one–dog dies”. Who could resist reading that to find out the full story?
The way Petplace tells it, a young man and his girlfriend are speeding down the road to the animal emergency clinic because their teacup poodle Missy is choking. They’re stopped by the police for speeding. The young man explains why he’s speeding, and the police officer says, “It’s just a dog, you can get another one.” How callous! No compassion!, Petplace says. It allegedly takes the officer 20 minutes to write the speeding ticket, and during that time, Missy dies in the girlfriend’s lap. Outrageous!, I say to myself. But it almost has the ring of urban legend to it. Fortunately, there is video from the officer’s squad car, which is shown on Good Morning America, along with an interview of the couple.
And here’s the real story. It’s almost like the above. The young man is driving, but the “speeding” refers to driving between 95-99 mph, weaving in and out of traffic, dodging semis, and let me mention, talking on his cell phone to the clinic as he does so. When he’s stopped, he hops out of the car and is completely hysterical. He’s hopping around, flailing his arms, crying and pleading. He comes across as someone whose last meal consisted of cocaine as an appetizer, a larger plate of cocaine as an entree, followed by a satisying dose of cocaine for dessert. See for yourself:
http://www.petplace.com/dog-videos.aspx?p=81
The sad truth of this story is that had they obeyed the speed limit, perhaps Missy would have made it to the emergency clinic on time. Or maybe not. And the police officer did say, “It’s just a dog, you can get another one.” In a tense situation he didn’t have time to say all the things that went along with that, such as, “You aren’t going to have to worry about your dog dying or about getting another dog, because at this rate of speed and the way you’re driving, you’re going to kill the dog, along with yourself and your girlfriend, and maybe several other people too.”
