Grammarly listed one of my sentences as an unclear antecedent. Does it matter? Bob was drinking while driving all the way to Vegas. This was a bad idea.
If it's important, you could spell it out a little more. Buzzed driving probably isn't even as dangerous as tired driving with hemorrhoids. What's he doing exactly? Bob sipped his favorite pregame drink from an innocent looking water bottle on his way to Vegas -- a shot of vodka in juice. This was a bad idea. Bob pounded beer after beer while driving to Vegas. This was a bad idea.
This one wouldn't confuse me. Maybe they meant it's not clear if "this" refers to "drinking while driving" or to "driving all the way to Vegas". In general, unclear antecedents matter.
It's not unclear. But if you want it to be even more straightforward: Bob drank the entire way to Vegas. This was a bad idea. Or something like that.
It kind of depends on what you want the sentence to say. If the intended meaning is both are bad ideas separately (drunk driving / going to Vegas), then what you have is just fine. It also creates a small bit of ambiguity at the sentence level, because, as a reader, I don't know whether or not they are separately bad ideas for this character. I assume it will become clear later in the narrative. If it's the drunk driving part that is a bad idea and not going to Vegas, then you might consider restructuring the sentence to clear the ambiguity. If it's Vegas that's a bad idea and your character has no qualms about drunk driving, then restructuring would make that clear.
