Informative Essay
Are too many lives being lost by Drinking and Driving? Think about it, everyday in the United States in the year 2014, twenty eight people die a day by driving under the influence. Driving under the influence means having a BAC (blood alcohol concentration) .08 grams per deciliter or higher. This leaves 32,572 males and 11,258 females in 2014 with a BAC higher than .08 in the United States. Drunk driving is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S.
A group who calls themselves M.A.D.D, meaning Mother's Against Drunk Driving began in 1980 as an activist movement. M.A.D.D began small then started to spread all over the U.S. and this is when people started to recognize their name. The motives by the group were good and their name traveled. M.A.D.D. commenced to end drunk driving and help the families and victims who were involved in the act of drunk driving. The group advocates drunk driving and wants to put it to an "end."
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This is where the economy comes into play. In the year 2010, a total cost of $242 billion was estimated of all motor vehicle crashes. With this, economy has costs such as lost in productivity, workplaces, legal and court expenses, medical costs (etc.) Other than economic costs and the driver, others pays $71.6 billion for alcohol related crashes. Drivers who are intoxicated and are involved in a crash usually pay for their actions for years. "It is estimated that in the five years following a drunk driving conviction, an offender.s car insurance bill can increase by $5,000 to $10,000." (Financial.
I think that it is agreed by all parties that the prodigious number of sober drivers in our neighborhoods, city streets, and country roads is at present deplorable to the state of our great nation. Currently, a whopping ninety-eight percent of Americans of driving age feel threatened by those who drive under the influence of alcohol, which means that only two percent of Americans are able to fully relax and enjoy themselves while on the road, and with the growing awareness, this number could be on the rise (MADD Online: General Statistics 1). What a travesty! All drivers, and passengers alike, should be put at the same risk for danger, be it damage, injury, or death.
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,...
The mothers against drunk driving and their foundation have saved over 300,000 lives to date with their growing foundation and implemented laws. In the beginning of their road to success, M.A.D.D.’s mission statement was “to aid the victims of crimes performed by individuals driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, to aid the families of such victims and to increase public awareness of the problem of drinking and drugged driving." (MADD,1) When M.A.D.D. came together in 1980, they were originally called the mothers against drunk drivers, however, as time moved on they changed their name to the mothers against drunk driving and stated that they were opposed to the crime of drunk driving, not the individuals that committed the crime. In 1999, M.A.D.D. h...
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.
Drunk Driving is defined as: Operating a motor vehicle while one 's blood alcohol content is above the legal limit set by statute, which supposedly is the level at which a person cannot drive safely. State statutes define the legal limit to be between .08 and .10 depending on what state you’re in. Every 51 minutes in America, someone is killed in a drunk driving crash(MADD). That equates to 27 people every day. Which comes to a total of at least 9,855 deaths in a year. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 32% of fatal car crashes involve an intoxicated driver or pedestrian (MADD). As of right now, in society the total number of drunk driving accidents is slowly but surely increasing and if nothing is done about it, it’ll result in a tragic amount of deaths and injuries. Drunk drivers are extremely dangerous not just to oneself, but to society as well. That is why one serious solution to this societal epidemic is to create a portion of the driving test where drivers will be required to be at least ten beers deep and while drunk they must drive through a set of
According to MADD, in 2012 30% of traffic deaths were a result of drunken driving fatalities. There were over 1200 accidents caused by drunk driving, with over 700 injuries. It’s not always the person drinking that is affected by these accidents. Innocent people are seriously injured and even killed every day as a result of other people drinking and driving. Why should they or their families pay for this bad judgment? The worst part is these accidents are preventable. If you are going to drink be responsible enough not to drive. It’s not just your life that could be
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.
PURPOSE: To persuade my audience NOT to drink and drive Every person is accountable for his or her own “right to drink”. Failure to treat this or any “right” responsibly has consequences. The person’s “right” can and should be taken away when the failure to act responsibly endangers others.
Why Shouldn’t We Lower the Blood Alcohol Rate? It is a tragic truth: About 10,000 lives are lost in the United States because of drunk driving each year. Alcohol is widely known as one of the main reasons for causing social security issues. Small amounts can make people feel relaxed, but bigger amounts can make them lose their coordination, get a feeling of confusion and disorientation, and significantly slow their reaction time. On average, one person dies every hour because of an alcoholic traffic accident in the United States.
For many years, drunk driving casualties have been viewed differently. Many believe that drunk driving laws are strict while others believe that it is too lenient. In this generations, where alcohol is cheap and very accessible many tends to abuse it. This people who abuse alcohol is known as drunk drivers because after taking three or four drinks they still believe that they are not drunk and goes back to the wheel of their vehicle without thinking of what will happen next. This drunk drivers are willing to risk their lives and the lives of others because they are ashamed or too big to call a family member or a designated drivers to take them home. If they are lucky and did not die on their way home. Then they create this dangerous cycle of
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).
Specific Purpose Statement: To inform my audience how to insure their safety, and the safety of others, while on the road
Drunk driving can be very deadly. Yet many people drive while under the influence everyday. Drivers who are drunk are blamed for the loss of as many as twentyfive thousand lives in highway crashes each year and hundreds of thousands of severe injurys.
Sage Singleton Alcohol is one of the most dangerous abused substances used through out the world and has been for several of years. It can cause harm to the body and impair judgement. In fact, a high amount of traffic deaths have been caused from alcohol abuse before or during driving. Alcohol is the #1 misused drug in the United States of America, although many people don't consider alcohol to be considered a "drug", it is. Let's go behind the scenes of this major concern of the world today, which has been a major concern for several centuries in the world.