Drinking and Driving

Don’t get us wrong as we do oppose drinking and driving in every sense of the meaning. Seems every day on the news or in a news paper someone has been arrested for drunk driving. In many cases the arrest makes that persons third, forth or ever nineteenth time. Stiff fines do not seem to deter drunk driving. Jail time hasn’t worked for most either.

Here’s an idea, why not remove all alcohol products from establishments that sell gasoline, diesel, propane or other fuels for motor vehicles. Allowing alcohol products to be sold from the same real estate as motor vehicle fuels promotes the use of alcohol while driving.

City, county, state and federal governments rely on the funds generated by the taxes on sales of alcohol products. What better place to allow the sell alcohol than the same location as the sell of motor vehicle fuels. This way our governments generate yet another source of revenue by means of Drinking and Driving Laws.

Although the law has been extended to include the use of illegal drugs and some legal prescription drugs the outcome is the same which amounts to catch and release. This creates a constant flow of revenue for our many governments with no concern for those that have lost their lives due to drunk driving or drunk drivers.

This post is our opinion based on our own observations and does not reflect the view of others on the topic of Drinking and Driving.

 

It Pays To Compare Prices

We have a 1999 GMC Sonoma that was in need of repair. The “Service Engine” light would come on whenever we added gasoline. We also could not fill the gas tank because gas would spill out the top of the tank. We went to our local GMC dealership to inquire about the cost of the repairs They gave us a quote of $140 plus a $40 diagnostic charge and would require the truck to be there all day.

Not wanting to pay the diagnostic charge due to the fact we told them what the problem was, we chose to shop around for a reasonable repair price. We went to an auto repair shop and they told us the cost would be $140 plus $45 for the O-Ring that seals the gas tank. They also said the repair would take two to three days.

We then went to an auto body shop to see if they would even give us a quote. They said they do not normally do this type of repair which required the removal of the gas tank. However they did say they could remove the truck bed and make the repair without removing the tank if we would purchase the O-Ring ourselves from an auto parts store. They didn’t know what the charge would come to but assured us it would be under $100.

We purchased the new O-Ring and new locking ring for $17.52 at a parts store and took the truck to the body shop the next morning. They told us we could hang around because they were going to start working on our truck right away. They removed the truck bed, replaced the O-Ring and reinstalled the truck bed and gave us the repair cost of $60. The time that it took to complete the job was one hour and fifteen minutes.

So much for higher priced repair shops and days to get you vehicle back. It pays to shop around and compare prices.