Drunk driving has many severe effects to society. So far Alaska has the highest rate for fatal drinking and driving accidents. There has also been about 1.4 million arrests on DUIs’ each year. Then, while on the road being drunk the alcohol Drunk drivers have affected society leading up to car accidents, financial issues, and not only has it affected society it also affects the driver personally. At least every day there is an accident caused by a drunk driver and an average of 53 minutes someone is killed. In 2011, the number of deaths was 9,878 but it 2013 the number increased up to 10,076. Additionally, in 2013 there was at least 1,149 deaths that occurred up to the age of 14. Furthermore, there was approximately 290,000 that were injured but in a day at least every two minutes someone is injured due to drunk drivers.Lastly, the estimated amount for annual vehicle crashes is more than 37 billion. …show more content…
The drivers car insurance bill can increase up to 5,000 to 10,000 dollars because of the accident. Also, any driver that has been convicted of a DUI or DWI has to pay for the installation of an ignition interlock. The ignition interlock can cost up to 100 dollars and an extra cost of 50 dollars is added each month for the lease.Then, the bail fee can cost up to a 2,600 fine and can face 6 months in jail.Finally, any driver that gets their driving privileges taken away has to pay a 250 reinstatement fee to earn it
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,...
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.
As you can see, drunk driving can cause many tragedies on a family or just the nation in general. Many people think that if we lower the Body Alcohol Content than there wouldn’t be as many people getting injured or killed a year. The question “Should tougher DUI laws be enacted?” is yet to be answered, but maybe in there next few years we will get an
“Drink the first. Sip the second slowly. Skip the third. The speedway ends at the cemetery” (Rockne). Every day, almost 30 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. This amounts to one death every 48 minutes. The annual cost of alcohol related crashes totals more than 51 billion. In Recent discussions of drunk driving, a controversial issue has been whether the driving while intoxicated laws should be increased due to the amount tax payers are paying for drunk driving crashes. On the one hand. Some argue that the driving laws for driving drunk should remain the same and not change. From this perspective the laws about driving under the influence should greatly increase to be stricter, this will help decrease the death rate per year in the United States. On the other hand, however others argue that the laws about driving while drunk are already too strict and should remain unchanged. In sum, then, the issue is whether the laws about driving drunk should be greatly increased to be more effective, or remain unchanged. Because drunk driving can result in unnecessary and premature deaths, unsafe roadways, billions of dollars spent on taxpayers due to DUI’S, and losing a loved one. Drunk driving laws should be altered to be more efficient.
We can conclude that drunk driving affects us all even if we aren’t the ones drinking and driving. Drunk driving is an ancient problem that has been going on way too long. The effects that is has not only on the driver, but on the entire community are endless. But together we can all join efforts to try and reduce drunk driving to a minimum. You never know when drunk driving is going to affect you or your family so helping to stop this social problem will help you as well.
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.
The first step in preventing DUIs is to prevent an intoxicated individual from driving. It is not always possible to prevent an individual from driving while intoxicated but various measures have been implemented to deter an individual who has been previously charged with a DUI to re-offend. The ignition interlock device is one such technology that is most widely used for deterring repeat DUI offenders. The ignition interlock device works by preventing the car from starting if the minimum BAC level in the breath of the driver is detected.
All in all drunk driving is a vice that require to be addressed at the earliest opportune time. This is so because most of the fatal accidents are caused by driver driving under the influence. The worst art of it all is that this problem is preventable though it is the leading causes of loss of lives in our roads and destruction of properties. It requires all parties to exercise caution and restraint while on the roads but above all it is a matter of discipline which if addressed then it goes along way in saving the human race.
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.
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.
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.
They are never going to be able to reclaim their normal life, while the offenders after a few days in prison are released and put on probation. Situations such as this begs to ask a question of fairness and justice. The penalties for a DUI in Texas are insufficient and need to be changed. A person with a first offense of a DUI gets a minimum of 3 to 180 days’ jail time and up to $2,000 in fines and penalties and requires no use of an interlock ignition device. South Dakota’s DUI penalties include no minimum jail time or fine for a first or second offense, no administrative license suspension, and no ignition interlock requirement. It had the number one fatality rate from 1995-2013 and the number nine rate for 2013 alone. Nevertheless, there are still far too many people dying each year because intoxicated people get behind the wheel. Many people believe that changing the law for a DUI would not help, that drinking is uncontrolled and one of the toughest addictions to break, bars will remain open, and stores will continue to sell beer. If it was you or your loved one that died as a result of someone else 's driving drunk, would you still feel the same way? Would you still think that the laws shouldn’t change? Driving is a privilege and a responsibility. Drivers should always take this responsibility to heart before getting behind the wheel of an automobile. They should think about the pedestrians walking along the
In addition, alcohol-related traffic accidents not only cause high death rates, but they cost society % 45 billion annually in hospital costs, rehabilitation expenses, and lost productivity (NHTSA 3). It also affects traffic safety, in that the amount of arrests of intoxicated drivers prevents the police from arresting other traffic violators. In 1995 more than 1.4 million people were arrested for driving under the influence, this totaled 10 percent of all arrests made in that year (Hingson 1).
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.