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The effect of drinking and driving
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The effect of drinking and driving
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Cause and Effect Essay on: Drunk Driving Driving a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol is one of the most dangerous things you can do. There is a mass of research evidence to show that driving performance and reaction times are seriously affected by alcohol. Our law in Georgia states, “that it is illegal to operate a motor vehicle if your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeds .10%. Georgia observes a "per se" law. (Craft) If you drink and drive, you are not only a danger to yourself but also to your passenger, other road users and pedestrians. In fact, every 30 minutes, someone in this country dies in alcohol-related crash. Every 30 minutes! And last year alone more than one million people are injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes. Alcohol is a depressant that slows down body reactions and the working of the brain. Each year drunk driving is responsible for about 25% of these deaths. The risks of drinking are alcohol-related accidents and violence. The effects of alcohol are poor coordination and slurred speech, double vision, decrease of self-control loss of consciousness and death. There are legal consequences due to drinking also. The more a person drinks, the more their ability to make important decisions becomes impaired. After just one drink, a driver can lose their ability to perform the tasks necessary to drive a car. At a certain point, a driver will become illegally intoxicated and can be arrested for attempting to operate a moto...
The facts are plain and simple, that alcohol and driving do not mix. About three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol related crash at some time in their lives. Every single injury and death caused by drunk driving is totally preventable. To curb this national travesty, concerned Americans need to examine the problems, the effects, and the solutions to drunk driving. First of all, America has had a problem with drunk driving since Ford perfected the assembly line. Alcoholism is a problem in and of itself, but combined with driving can have a wide range of effects. The consequences of this reckless behavior can include a first time DUI or licenses suspension; a small fender bender, or worst of all a deadly crash. Most drivers that have only one or two drinks feel fine, and assume they are in control, which is irresponsible and dangerous. Alcohol is a depressant that slows down the body's ability to react and impairs judgment. To drive well, you need to be able to have a quick reaction time to avoid accidents. Unfortunately, people continue to drink and drive. However,...
In Conclusion, drinking and driving is never a good idea. We must work together to urge our government to create stricter drunk driving laws so we may have safer roadways. So next time you are thinking about drinking and driving, think again because in the future it could mean $1,000’s in fines and maybe even years in jail.
Alcohol is causing too many deaths. Each year, excessive drinking is responsible for the deaths of 80,000 people in the United States, 4,700 of which are young Americans (6). Alcohol by itself is dangerous; this danger is (made greater) when individuals consuming it are allowed to drive a vehicle. Research has shown that a pedestrian struck by a vehicle moving at 40 miles an hour has a fifty percent chance of getting killed as a result of the impact (9). A distracted or impaired driver will not be able to react as fast as a non-impaired driver, meaning a drunk driver is a more dangerous driver than a sober one.
People do not realize how much of a problem drinking and driving can cause, not only in the United States but all over the world. In 2009, 1.4 million drivers have been arrested, but the influenced by alcohol or drugs. There is a very high percentage of motorcycle fatalities and about a third of them are alcohol accidents and there levels are above legal
...result in unnecessary and premature deaths, unsafe roadways, billions of dollars spent on taxpayers due to DUI’S, and losing a loved one. Drunken driving laws should be altered to be more efficient. Not everyone dies in a drunken driving accident. Think before you drink, you only have one life, make sure to make the right decisions.
Drunk driving has been an increasing problem for many years. One issue that contributes to this is that in the United States it is actually legal to drive with a certain alcohol percentage. The blood alcohol limit is 0.8 percent (Drunk Driving). This means that a person may drive legally as long as they have a blood alcohol percentage of 0.8 percent or under. However, even at a percentage of 0.3 there may be some impairment of alertness and concentration (Drunk Driving). Driving requires fast reflexes that may be impaired at a 0.5 percent blood alcohol level but a person with this level of intoxication is not legally drinking and driving. Many people are arrested for drunk driving. In 2009, more than 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving while under the influence (Drunk Driving). In addition, “an average drunk driver has driven drunk 80 times before their first arrest” (Get Involved). Therefore, there were a minimum of 112 million accounts of drunk driving in 2009 alone. Drunk drivers also cause an increasing number of deaths. Drunk drivers in the United States c...
Effects of Drinking and Driving I’ve never seen drinking and driving on a daily planner or heard anyone say I think I’ll get a DUI today. I have heard people say “it’s my life, and if I want to drink and drive I will”. Well, it’s not just your life that is affected by the results of drinking and driving. When you make that choice to drink and drive you are taking the lives of family, friends, and strangers into your hands. You don’t have to get into an accident and kill somebody for the results to destroy you or someone else’s life. Drinking and driving can be the cause of many traumatic life changing events.
Driving while drunk is one of the very dangerous things in the life of a driver. Drivers who work under high Blood Alcohol Concentration also known as (BAC) usually expressed as a percentage of ethanol in the blood consisting of alcohol per volume of blood or alternatively mass of alcohol per mass of blood. These drivers are at a great increase of car risk accidents, vehicular deaths as well as highway risks. Drinking under the Influence commonly known as DUI simply refers to driving a motor vehicle while one has level of alcohol in their blood exceeding the legal limit. This is not limited to alcoholic content but covers other drugs that include but are not limited to prescription drugs. This leads the driver to lack coordination, experience double vision, brief blackouts and have a slurred speech. Driving under the influence causes brain impairment leading to a person feeling that they can manage a situation just like they have always handled it before. This is always as a result of poor reasoning and judgment which leaves one vulnerable to the deadly effects of drunk driving.
Driving under the influence is extremely dangerous. Those who drink and drive tend to have an increased risk of car accidents, highway injuries, and vehicular fatalities. However, there are countless ways to prevent drunk driving. Professor David J. Hanson at the sociology department at the State University of New York states that “designated drivers have saved nearly 50,000 lives and spared many more thousands of people from suffering injury from drunk driving. It is a proven fact that almost 30 people in the US die every day in a motor vehicle accident involving a driver impaired by alcohol.” Every accident caused by drunk driving is one hundred percent preventable.
drinking alcoholic is very harmful for the people bodies. Furthermore, the number of overall motor vehicle deaths is decreasing – a trend that alcohol – related fatalities are sure to follow, regardless of the drinking age. For example, significant improvements in high way systems and vehicle safety have helped to decrease the overall number of motor vehicle deaths.
Driving under the influence is measured by a person’s blood alcohol level (BAC). BAC is determined by the concentration of alcohol in the bloodstream. Individual counties and states have their own legal level on blood alcohol percentages that they measure a person’s BAC to determine if they are intoxicated while behind the wheel. “Everywhere in the United States it is illegal to drive with a BAC of 0.08% or higher” (DUI Foundation).
Alcohol is something that people use to help with multiply different things and some studies have shown that alcohol may help protect our bodies from cardiovascular disease. Alcohol does have side effects to our health the surroundings around us and can cause violence, vehicle crashes and even suicide. Alcohol does have an effect on people that many social drinkers may not realize. Many people usually have tried alcohol around 13 years of age and high school students consume more wine coolers that are sold in the U.S. and they drink more than 1 billion beers a year. To understand the effects of alcohol, it begins with the brain. It is a curiosity as to why people feel the need to drink and drive. The way the brain works while influenced with alcohol has always fascinated me. Drinking and driving is one of the biggest decisions that alcohol leads to. The National Public Services Research Institute (NHTSA) did a study on 600 people who admitted driving while under the influence of alcohol. They described in detail the decisions they made leading up to the occurrence of driving while impaired like whether to take part in a drinking event, how to get to the event, how much to drink, and how to get home. The people being interviewed revealed more than 2,000 individual decisions that led to alcohol impaired driving. The decisions were then broken down into several categories as shown on the graph attached. Little is known as to what leads people to continue to drinking and driving. But as research shows, people do think, prior to drinking, how they will get home. It’s after they have already had been drinking that they decide to get behind the wheel.
Driving under the influence is one of the most common and dangerous situations in which anyone can be or be placed. Drinking and driving is a serious offence that can cause someone to be physically harm or even killed. Not only are you putting yourself at risk but you are also risking the lives of passengers in the car as well as any other car and occupants sharing the road with you. Many people believe that increasing fines for drunk driving offenders will play a compelling role in cutting down the occurrences of driving under the influence. However, while harsher DUI laws will look effective on paper, they will not make a significant step in the fight against drunk driving. Although there is a law enforced for drinking and driving in the
Drunk driving is extremely impactful on the lives of you and others. While drinking and driving, you are not just endangering yourself, you are also endangering the lives of others. The driver of the car does not just control the car with their hands and feet. They need their brain to function properly so that you are able to react to objects on the road quicker and control the car. If you drink then drive/ drink while driving. Alcohol affects your brain in many ways that inhibit your ability to drive. Alcohol will affect your reaction time, it slows your reflexes which decrease your ability to react to objects on the road. It affects your vision, in can impair your color perception, and night vision. It slows down the movement in the muscles in your eye causing your visual perception to change. Alcohol affects your ability to track. You will not be able to judge the position of cars ahead of you, you won’t be able to judge the
Many people in the United States enjoy a drink of their favorite alcoholic beverage. It could be a nice ice cold beer after a hard day of work or going to the bar and enjoying a few shots or mixed drinks with friends. Drinking alcohol is a common way to mingle with friends and take the edge off a difficult day. However, there are dangers involved with alcohol since it does dampen the body’s ability to cope with new information. Alcohol becomes a poison to the body when consumed in large quantities. The biggest danger is not to the driver after they become inebriated, but comes to anyone the drunk driver comes in contact with. A sober person can be dangerous just by being distracted, but a drunk driver’s ability to cope with changing situations and distractions is one of the biggest hazards on today’s roads. Some individuals believe that they are not as impaired as what they are led to believe from government ads and the many videos that show what can happen to someone who is drinking and driving. Although, there are many policies in place to advocate against drunk driving, there are those who would endanger themselves and others with their thoughtless actions when they jump into the driver’s seat of a vehicle. Drinking and driving should never be combined because a person who has been drinking does not have the ability to use all mental faculties unimpaired, many people have been killed, injured, or psychologically hurt by a drunk driver, many men and women do not know the difference weight and gender have on the body’s ability to process alcohol, and the financial and legal trouble that is awaiting for those convicted by a DUI.