Opinion: Deadly decisions are easier to make than we like to think

Early Sunday morning, a UNC student sped the wrong direction on Interstate 85 and collided with a car containing four people, two of them children ages 6 and 9.

All but the 9-year-old died upon impact. The student, Chandler Kania, has been charged with driving while intoxicated, as well as multiple charges associated with the fact that he was drinking as a minor.

More charges related to the three people killed, Darlene McGee, Felecia Harris and Jahnice Baird, are expected.

What happened Sunday morning is not extraordinary or some kind of senseless accident. It is the result of deliberate choices.

Binge drinking and driving while intoxicated are not exceptional actions — they happen regularly around our campus and nationally.

If we wish to prevent future cases like this one, we must reckon with the fact that many students make the decision to get behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated on a regular basis.

Imagining this incident as something that happened to someone else, something that could never involve ourselves or our friends, is counterproductive.

It removes the general drinking population at UNC from the responsibility of thinking deeply about how, why and when we drink and all the associated possible consequences.

There is little that is productive about viewing Kania as a coldhearted villain. He is charged, of course, with making an astoundingly irresponsible decision that resulted in three deaths, one of them a 6-year-old girl. This is an immeasurable loss, and if convicted, Kania should face the full consequences for these deaths.

But all turning Kania into a caricature does is shield us from considering how we might also engage in behaviors that harm others. That is taking the easy way out.

The UNC community should mourn and remember McGee, Harris and Baird.

In order to truly mourn their families’ loss, we should also use this time to ask ourselves tough questions about the decisions we make around alcohol — questions like: “Am I prepared to take away a friend’s keys in order to prevent them from driving while intoxicated?” and, “I got home safe when I drove drunk, but what if things had gone differently?”

It is only in asking these questions and examining our own actions that we can show respect for the lives of Felecia Harris, Darlene McGee and Jahnice Baird.