That Chap I was so fond of...

joseph brand wrote: »

What a horrible man. Getting drunk. Learned his lesson. You must have never been drunk, otherwise it would be stupid and hypocritical to make that statement. Some heartless people on boards today.

Oh btw, who the F**K cares if she said chap/ man/ guy etc. . First world problems eh?

Funnily, you're right. I have never been drunk. Good thing, eh? Otherwise I'd look stupid and hypocritical.

And it's not heartless to be realistic - in this case, even if it makes one person reconsider getting wankered drunk this weekend and avoid an accident, it's worth it. Almost all mistakes are worth making, if we can learn a lesson from them.

Feeona wrote: »

I don't think a drunken decision is acceptable. But that's not the point of this thread.


I f*king abhor this new fashion of saying 'Yeah he/she suffered, but what about....?'. Are we this inured to absolute devastation that we can take something, process it and dismiss it? I'm really just trying to figure this mindset out, because it's not something I could dismiss so easily. But then again, I've had the unfortunate advantage of losing people who were very close to me. Thank god I've never had to go through the horror of losing a child though, from what I've heard and observed, it's the single most horrendous thing you can go through.

Just seen this now... as above, if discussing it in a realistic fashion stirs somebody into giving those two final shots a second thought, it's worth it. I would never say dismiss this - but we absolutely must learn from it, otherwise it is a loss with absolutely zero merit.

Genghis wrote: »

I like these ads, I think their raw genuine nature makes them much more powerful. I am guessing they let the victims featured speak in their own way and then use that footage. Might not be the way an ad would be professional scripted, but it retains integrity.

I am more annoyed by slice of life ads that are so scripted they become totally lifeless.

It seems to me that the only people affected by them, are those who have lost a friend or family member in similar circumstances. To a lot of other people these ads don't make a blind bit of difference and they still go out on the piss.

Must say, the line 'this chap I was so fond of' is what makes that ad stick in my mind.

I often call my own young son 'my little chap' - for me it catches the idea that although he may act all grown-up, in my head he's still just a toddler playing at dressing up. And fondness is a real part of what I feel for my kids: it's not the automatic unbreakable love, the fierce unconditional kind that's always there from the moment you first see them in a scan or covered in goop on the gurney, but an often surprising like for who they are and what they get up to.

It's details like that, ones that speak of a specific grief and not a generic type from yet another overblown soap opera, that actually strike home.

Feeona wrote: »

If I was trying to wrap the world up in cotton wool, I'd be complaining about TV ads where accidents are shown. But I don't complain about these ads, because I can see the reasoning behind them.

I, however, cannot see the reasoning behind saying that a mother shouldn't be fond of her son because he died as a result of being drunk, or that he deserved everything he got because he was drunk.

I never said she shouldn't be fond of her son (that was another poster) nor did I say he deserved to die as he was drunk - what I said was that he made the decision to get drunk, and thus is was his own fault that he got hit by a car.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

If he was stupid and irresponsible enough to get blind drunk and fall out in front of a car he might not have been the best son.

Also, I don't see the point of the ad. He killed himself.

Jimmy Bottlehead wrote: »

I never said she shouldn't be fond of her son (that was another poster) nor did I say he deserved to die as he was drunk - what I said was that he made the decision to get drunk, and thus is was his own fault that he got hit by a car.

You thanked the first post, that means you agree with it.

What I'm getting at here is not that people shouldn't take responsibility for their own actions (we all should take due care). What annoys me about this forum is that a post as callous as the first one is considered a valid reason for a mother not to love her son. It's ridiculous, and as another poster pointed out, shows an alarming lack of basic life experience.

Feeona wrote: »

You thanked the first post, that means you agree with it.

What I'm getting at here is not that people shouldn't take responsibility for their own actions (we all should take due care). What annoys me about this forum is that a post as callous as the first one is considered a valid reason for a mother not to love her son. It's ridiculous, and as another poster pointed out, shows an alarming lack of basic life experience.

I agree with the overall sentiment, but not specifically word for word.

However, as you're being pedantic, I'll break it down for you:

If he was stupid and irresponsible enough to get blind drunk and fall out in front of a car he might not have been the best son.

Also, I don't see the point of the ad. He killed himself.

1) I think he was stupid
2) I think he was irresponsible
3) I don't particularly agree with the "He might not have been the best son" part
4) I agree that the point of the ad is unclear, that it needs to be more targeted to blaming the drunk guy rather than the driver
5) I agree - this guy, in a sense, killed himself - his actions were irresponsible and reckless, and unfortunately for him, led directly to his being killed.

I may be different from you, but I'll thank a post if it makes me laugh, makes me think, or if I agree with it in a broad sense. Sometimes I'll thank it if the poster has said the exact same thing I'd like to have said, but not always.

Hope that clarifies it.

I read the first few posts and had to respond!How can people be so cold! This woman lost her son, it doesn't matter how...the end result is still the same, he is not there anymore. The ad is not there to put the blame on anybody, it is highlighting how accidents can happen.

The ad is to make everybody aware of it. Drivers to look out, to be alert. Pedesterians to be careful and maybe even make people think twice about getting so drunk.

That woman didnt bear her soul on tv for people to turn around and slag off her son or to hear them say he deserved to die. She wanted to save lives, to hopefully stop another mother going through the same thing.

Back to the point of the thread. The line at the end stayed with me after i heard it, I think it it so stark and you can see how upset she is.

This thread is a bit strange..

People just randomly throwing out blame, and saying things like "assisted suicide" with absolutely nothing to back it up. Surprised at Makikomi alluding that the driver is always responsible if somebody gets hit by a car.

All I can say is I went walking on a dark backroad one night a few years ago, starting out about 20KM from home. I was blind drunk and staggering all over the place. I got a bit of the way up the road and a taxi stopped and brought me home. He was incredibly nice to me, and basically just told me I was very stupid to go walking. He didn't even charge me a fare.

All I could think of for weeks and months afterwards was that nice man is the same man, whose life I could have destroyed had I stumbled out in front of him and been hit by his car.

whydoibother? wrote: »

but if the part in bold were true no pedestrian would ever be obliged to wait for a safe space to cross the road

They're not legally obliged to wait for a safe space as far as I'm aware.

Ireland doesn't have Jaywalking laws in essence giving pedestrians right of way when crossing the road anywhere (with the exception of motorways).

Also that doesn't negate the necessity of zebra crossings, and I'd be happy to be corrected if wrong.

Seachmall wrote: »

They're not legally obliged to wait for a safe space as far as I'm aware.

I think people are confusing what was said earlier and the position on crossing the road.

as mentioned earlier, if someone steps out on the road in front of you, you are expected to try and avoid them - that is the point -

You may not always succeed in avoiding them but this does not make it the driver's fault

Ryleigh Yellow Vaccine wrote: »

Even disgarding the chaps actions, the onus is on the driver to give way to pedestrians alighting the pavement.. No where is it broken down to allow a driver to knock someone down and kill them if they're drunk and stumbling.

The onus is on a adult to be responsible for their own safety. He drank too much and caused his own death.

Ryleigh Yellow Vaccine wrote: »

Dunno, either your lacking life experience which makes you come out with this rubbish or you're on a wind up.

My life experience has thought me to not endanger my life. Its also thought me to drink in moderation.


As for my original comment. Let me break it down for you. The OP inquired why the mother would say such a comment. As others have said, it could be due to the depth of emotion she feels for him. I've pointed out another option. Maybe she loved him in the way a mother loves her son. But he could have been a right prick in many ways and in retrospect it may change the way she chooses to word how she felt about him. Its a opinion and a possibility, nothing more and nothing less.

I knew in some ways that both opinions would go against popular opinion, since when a death is mentioned here many posters seem to feel a personal connection regardless of their actual connection to the person. But this guy is nothing but a statistic to me and I will view his death as one.

As for the ad, I hate it. It to me vilifies the driver and makes it out that the car was to blame. From the way the ad and newspaper articles have been worded, I don't believe the driver should be to blame. And I don't think it should be plastered all over the TV for him, his family and friends to watch and be reminded of him having taken a life.