"Simply No Excuses"

Yes, that is true. There are times when behaviour is excusable on certain explicable grounds. But far more times when excessive stupidity repeated too many times, despite unhappy consequences can no longer be excused. Nor might they have been once the first repeat occurred. Once represented bad, really bad judgement, and perhaps a screw or two temporarily loose up in the cerebellum.

Repeats became in and of themselves beyond excuse.

And these were serious incidents. Serious enough to bring the judgement of the law into play. And it is quite simply indefensible that young people in their early adulthood cannot recognize the serious stupidity of actions that they seem to consider to be juvenile fun. What takes them so long to recognize that risk-taking involving the lives of others can never be considered 'fun' or amusing is beyond understanding.

Perhaps understanding of a sort can be found in the fact that these young people are bored, they come from privileged backgrounds, they have never been challenged to discipline themselves, they are not sufficiently respectful of society and of the safety and security of others, and they have been for far too long indulged in whatever lame-brained schemes they seem to cook up.

The victim impact statements of Alex Zolpis's mother, his sister and his betrothed are undeniably heartfelt and grief-laden. His death by misadventure of an avoidable kind has changed their lives forever, and laden the remainder of their days with the most profound misery.

While the young man who was his best friend, and whose jackanapes boisterousness aided by alcohol was the instrument of his death, professes his own never-ending grief.

When 25-year-old Jack Tobin decided to entertain himself and his friends by driving a vehicle recklessly on a roof-top parking garage on Christmas Eve following a night of partying and imbibing, some of those friends had the guts and the good sense to excuse themselves from participating.

Jack Tobin's inebriated condition and his proposed hi-jinks did not, evidently, stop Alex Zolpis and Owen Seay from indulging in stupidity along with their friend.

Owen Seay survived the ordeal that ensued, and Alex Zolpis did not. Decent young people, all of them, with glowing futures ahead of them, and loving families that cherished them. But all of society's warnings and their parents' concerns for them did not dissuade them from engaging in stupid and risky behaviour.

One young man is dead, his future obliterated, and his family left to recall endlessly what was and might have been. Families that were once friends are now irremediably estranged. Another young man will always have the shadow of his grave errors in choices weighing down his spirit and his destiny in life. That man is now a convert to the realities of drinking and driving.

The conversion was immensely costly, and need not have been. Simply no excuses.