Ruggs, 22, is accused of causing the predawn crash by driving drunk at speeds up to 156 mph with his girlfriend in his Corvette sports car before it slammed into the rear of Tintor’s Toyota RAV4 on a residential street where the speed limit is 45 mph. November 3rd, 2021
The above accident happened at 3:30am, after he left a TopGolf in Las Vegas at 12:30am, and his BAC was .16, 2x the legal limit. From my limited research of Henry Ruggs, he didn’t have a checkered past. Former teammate Tua Tagovailoa said, “You’d never think this guy could hurt a soul, so when you see something like that – I mean, I’m still kind of in disbelief. But, obviously my heart goes out to the family that has been affected by it. But my heart also goes out to Henry as my teammate, ex-teammate.”
Whose to Blame?
The reason I write this post is because I watched a video that was criticizing the people around Henry that night for not taking the keys from him. It struck a nerve with me because it’s clear that you can view a story like this and have two very different opinions and we’ll just disagree. As someone who knows the risks of alcohol and driving, there is never a time where you don’t accept personal responsibility when you get behind the wheel after drinking. The people around you can try to influence that decision, and you can blame them for not taking a sterner approach, but it’s not their duty to take the keys from you. You accept the consequences of your decisions at all times, even when you’re incapable of making good choices. As someone who has blacked out plenty of times, it’s easy to say “I had no idea what I was doing, how can I be held responsible?” That’s not an excuse because you let yourself get to that point and you accept all ramifications from bad decisions. To put this on friends is unacceptable in my mind.
To take a macro view at this argument, there is no right or wrong answer. I think I’m right to say that the friends hold 0 responsibility to stop Henry from getting in that car. The friends who let that happen probably will never forgive themselves for that night and they will blame themselves. I’d guess Henry accepts all the responsibility and how that one night ruined his entire life. It goes to show why politics exist. I believe in personal responsibility is the highest achievement in life. You take full control for every action that happens to you. This is a watermark of a conservative approach to life. Another can say that the community did not do enough to stop this situation. They look at the system as where the failure occurs. This would be a democratic approach to the issue. Where I see all points of life stemming from the individual, others will make efforts to fix the system. If all individuals are highly motivated, the system will work. If the system (think Government) tries to control the outcome of the people, it fails. This Henry Ruggs scenario, for a guy who is most likely a tremendous human being who made one poor decision, sheds light on both sides of the coin.
I think the establishment has to accept some of the blame. They sold him the alcohol. This would never fly in the “Trump” world, but how about the establishment collects all keys, then only gives back keys to the sober people. Too radical?? Too law suit worthy??
I think about these things a fair amount. This comment will be too long…
Stopping drinking and driving is easy. We have plenty of technology to do it. The problem is, we just don’t want to. Just install face detection technology (in every IPhone already) and a breathalyzer into the car. And I’m sure there are way less expensive ways to solve this. Cars force you to put on your seatbelt now. I can only imagine how much lobbying went into that decision.
The issue is, peoples safety isn’t the actual goal. Speed limits should be lower, but safety isn’t the actual goal. Texting and driving could be stopped easily if your phone had to shut off every time you were operating your vehicle. “OH NO! BUT WHAT ABOUT GPS OR MUSIC?” I’m sure that could be programmed into the phone or car, but safety isn’t the actual goal. By the way, you just ran over a biker while reading this behind the wheel.
The Henry Ruggs incident (not an accident) is just the product of our stubbornness to change for the better. We lie to ourselves and say we try to balance convenience and safety, but the truth is, everything is money. All of these things are not fixed because of money. Bars need to serve you your 10th craft beer even though you cant order it standing up straight, cops need to pull you over driving home for the revenue. Nothing matters to people expect money (and sex).
ps. As a biker around the city, I 100% will be injured by a texting driver, so I’m super salty about it
This is going to be a hot take, and probably an unpopular one, but in a sense I don’t think the drinking had anything to do with the death. His BAC was .16. That’s like 8 beers and this happened at 3am? If he was dead sober you could make the argument he’d still be speeding since there was *essentially* nobody on the road. How many times have we driven cars where we’d easily pass a field sobriety but blow more than .08? Probably more than we can count on one hand. The entire situation sucks but it’s completely possible he felt and acted totally fine and was just going way WAY too fast, but since it was .16, he’ll be in jail for the next 8 years at least
I agree with .16 not being the determining factor, but it had to play a part to go 156. When you’re buzzed and thinking your on top of the world behind the wheel of a vehicle, 156 can feel like 80 (156 is absurd by the way). Would he be in jail for 8 years if he wasn’t drinking? Tongue in cheek, but the real winner here is Chevy with the Camaro and the loser is the Toyota Rav4.
To the bigger question:
Why isn’t FTX’s Sam Bankman Fried in jail?
Before I got married and had a DD, whenever I went out and knew I would be drinking past the point of safe driving, I would lock my keys in my car so I would have no ability to drive home and would have to get my car in the morning.
Another story is that one time I was running home because driving would have been a bad idea yet I got stopped and arrested for public drunkenness.
So just like your story, there are no winners.