Many people have lost loved ones as a result of drunk driving. Alcohol related motor vehicle accidents are one of the main causes of death, especially with teenagers. After drinking alcohol, a person’s perception and judgement become distorted and they may feel overconfident and take chances they’d never take if sober. Alcohol affects the body by impairing vision, slowing down reaction time, and making the body feel more relaxed and drowsy. People think that they can be careful when they drive drunk and that they’ll make it home safely, however, consuming alcohol makes the task almost impossible. Although drunk driving is more common in the youth, drinking is dangerous for everyone, particularly if they aren’t completely educated on the risks.
Drunk driving must be stopped, it hurts many people in different ways. There are countless accidents in which the drivers and passengers of vehicles have been killed or very badly injured by drunk drivers. One way that drunk drivers affect the lives of people is that they put everyone on the road around them in danger. Another way that drunk drivers affect people is that they impact the lives of anyone they hurt drastically. The last way that drunk drivers affect people’s lives is that they damage cars and property.
There is knocking at a door late at night, and there a policeman standing at the door with information that a family member was in an accident that involved a drunk driver. This is one of those things people hear and believe that it will not happen, but it happens every day. Every 40 minutes, someone in the U.S. is killed by a drunk driver and in 2008, in Montana, 40 percent of all traffic fatalities involved DUIs (“Drunk Driving” 1). Drunk Driving affects everyone and people in Montana should look at what other states do to find ways to make the laws tougher and more enforced.
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.
“Every year, in the United States about 600,000 and ten percent-of all motor vehicle crashes recorded by police department are all due to consumption of alcohol.” In 2003; 42,643 fatalities were caused by vehicle crashes. Of those, 17,013 (40 percent) were alcohol related. The majority people with DUI’s are not alcoholics. “Beer drinking causes about 80 percent of alcohol-related fatalities.” A crash is alcohol related if any driver, pedestrian or passenger involved has any trace of alcohol or there is suspicion of alcohol usage. As the cases of drunk driving quickly increase over a period of time as one of the fast developing public problem, more definite and stricter regulations should be emphasized on books and in the academic world to control such recurring drunk driving offenses.
Driving can be dangerous in the U.S. There are roughly two deaths every thirty-three minutes because of a drunk driving accident. Every 90 seconds, someone is injured because of this entirely preventable crime (MADD, par. 2). Drunk driving is the United State’s number one highway safety concern (MADD, par. 2). Driving under the influence has an arrest rate of one for every 123 licensed drivers in America. (NHTS) These accidents are much too common. Drivers were intoxicated in 41 percent of all fatal pedestrian crashes according to reports done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Driving under influence or with high blood alcohol content (BAC) increases the risk of car accidents, vehicular deaths, and more so highway injuries across all age-groups. In fact, an intoxicated driver with relatively higher BAC increases his/her risk of death by up to 380 times in single-vehicle crash (DeMichele, Lowe & Payne, 2014). Drunk driving is often considered as the largest social problem in the modern day society since 40 to 45% of all fatal traffic accidents usually involve drunk drivers. While 16 is the average blood alcohol content among some seriously injured drinking drivers, the culture of driving under influence can only be stopped through the development of a plausible plan to prevent it (Sloan, Eldred & Xu, 2014).
Drunk driving is becoming a major killer. More people are killed by drunk drivers than by a gun. Many people in today’s society do not think about the dangers of driving drunk. If more people knew the statistics of driving drunk, how it affects them, and how others are affected, then they would not drive drunk.
While drinking is dangerous on its own, drinking and driving presents an entirely new level of danger. When someone with a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) greater than 0.08% gets behind the wheel, they not only place themselves at risk for injury or death, but also anyone near them on the road. Although the intoxicated driver may believe they are fine, in reality, they are greatly impaired. When a person is “legally drunk” (BAC of 0.08% or greater), their judgement, reaction time, concentration, comprehension, coordination, and visual/auditory acuity are all lessened at immense rates. And while these skills become ineffective at a BAC of 0.08%, they actually start to become affected at a BAC as low as 0.02%.5 Surprisingly, a person can be more likely to drink and drive under certain circumstances. People are more likely to drink and drive if they have access to their car keys, are male, are “heavyweight,” are close to home, and are the type of person who gains confidence while they are drinking. While people outside of these guidelines are capable of drunk driving, these characteristics are found more often among drunk drivers. Consequently, approximately 10,000 americans die each year as victims to drink driving.6 This also the involves the innocent, sober citizens who are victims of others’ poor decisions. By far, people will agree that the best way to avoid drunk driving is to have
Over 1.2 million drivers have been arrested for narcotics in 2011.In 2011, 226 children were killed in drunk driving crashes. Of those, 122 (54% percent) were riding with the drunk driver. Drunk driving costs the United States $132 billion dollars a year (Statistics). Every single injury caused by the accidents from drinking and driving is totally preventable. The proportion of crashes that are alcohol-related has decreased immensely, but there are still many that happen that can be prevented. The legal limit to drink and drive is .02, but the average BAC among injured drivers is usually at .16.They normally get into accidents bc they are more drunk. On average, men drive with the BAC of .1...
Alcohol has become a widespread social problem for us. People are constanly abusing the legal status of being allowed to consume alcoholic beverage. Even the minor and teens are getting access to alcohol through elders, friends, family etc or by trying to cicumvent policies and law designed to prevent access to them. According to the NHTSA, nearly 12,000 people in the U.S. die every year in DUI-related accidents. 900,000 are arrested each year for DUI/DWI, and a full 1/3 of those are repeat offenders. The rate of arrests for DUI/DWI almost doubles during the holidays. Allen D. Porter, an attorney and president of DrinkingandDriving.org, said, “Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, over 130,000 men, women and children have died in America as a result of drunk driving. Laws providing a deterrent are not...
Driving while intoxicated is becoming a major issue in the United States. Statistics indicate that nearly 1.5 million Americans are arrested annually on DUI charges, making it the number one crime which Americans are arrested for (Joseph R. Szczesny 1). Of the 1.5 arrests made,
Driving under the influence has affected many people's lives and families. Today I would like to talk to you about the problems of drinking and driving, and why it is a concern for all of us. Driving under the influence is one of the most common and dangerous situations you can put yourself or someone else in. The fact is that drinking and driving is a huge deal and can leave a long trail of broken dreams and hearts. If you drink and drive, not only are you putting yourself at risk, but your passengers and the pedestrians outside of your vehicle. According to the most recent statistics by the National Commission Against Drunk Driving states that 17,000 Americans die each year in alcohol- related traffic crashes and 600,000 Americans are injured (NCADD). That's is and average of one fatal accident every thirty minutes. Every thirty minutes someone's life has ended and his or her family and friends left to weep. Anyone of these accidents could easily be a family member, relative, or neighbor. Most of these alcohol-related crashes are not just cuts and bruises. People are paralyzed, severely disfigured, or have lost the ability to live out a normal life with work and having fun are now activities that now rely on the aid of others.