Drinking and Driving vs. Driving Sober In the world today there are many incidents and accidents that are caused from people being under the influence of alcohol while behind the wheel. Not only is this happening whenever people hear it on the news, but it's happening all over the world more than anyone thinks. There are many different things that are wrong with drinking and driving. One of the biggest reasons not to drink and drive is the risk of your life. Anytime someone is drunk and start to drive they are putting their life on the line each and every time. In 2008, 11,773 people were killed from a drinking and driving accident. This statistic doesn't just record for the driver stats. This stat is on both sides of the picture, from the drunk driver plus any passengers and or pedestrians walking or driving down the road. Drunk driving is defiantly not the smartest or safest thing to do and the stats prove it. Another reason why drinking and driving is very bad and should stop is because not only is the person risking their own life, but they are harming everyone else's life around them. The number of …show more content…
They will go from increasing to decreasing. Most people in the world right now are either learning from these different statistics and are being safer about it. Or there are people who still don’t even care and are constantly drinking and driving. That is the reason why the change in this isn't constant, it is constantly changing. All of this nonsense about drinking and driving is all common sense. If people would just think and use their head they wouldn’t be ruining their lives or ruining someone else's. Driving is by far the most popular for stupid decisions and driving while intoxicated but there are other things people can do as well that could harm them and anyone else around them. If people are drinking it changes there whole personality and what they might do, and that is why drinking can be
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.
Drunk driving is a serious offense and should be avoided at all times. Drunk driving is the crime of driving while having alcohol in your blood. Alcohol is a depressant and it slows down the central nervous system. It impairs vision, concentration, hand-eye coordination, and comprehension. Thus, drunk driving is against the law and makes it very hard to function. Drink-ing alcohol got the best of my uncle Steve. He suffered from alcoholism at a very young age. As a concerning family we have tried to get him help but it never did any good for him. Drinking alcohol took over my uncles life and then eventually drunk driving became a natural habit of his life.
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
The combination of driving an automobile after drinking a significant amount of alcohol has been recognized as a serious problem since the motor car was invented in the 1880s. By 1910, the law in the United States had already codified drunk driving as a misdemeanor offence. Prohibitionists used the danger created by mixing alcohol and driving as a key point in their argument in favor of the eighteenth amendment, as a result of which the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol was banned between 1920 and 1933. Apparently lessons were not learned and many decades later drunk driving has been called one of the most serious problems confronting America today” (Kinkade). This should not be a problem for any country as individuals should be able to control their drinking behavior.
There are many reasons why people drink and drive. Many people drive under the influence all the time. Drivers have a responsibility while drinking and driving. Drunk driving is a problem today in the United States. People need to be aware of the consequences it effect on people and realize drinking and driving is an issue and needs to stop. Why not ban alcohol? If it was illegal to drink there would be less drunk drivers.
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
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.
When someone makes the decision to consume alcoholic beverages, it should go without saying that they should also be choosing to be a responsible drinker. Being a responsible drinker means not consuming more alcohol than their body can handle and more importantly, not getting behind the wheel of any type of vehicle after drinking. In an article written by high school student Steven Engler, he says it well; “If you choose to use it, do it responsibly, and don’t put anyone’s life in danger, including your own.” (New York Times, 2003) No matter the person’s age or the type of alcohol consumed, alcohol lowers a person’s inhibitions and ability to think clearly, while also increasing their chances of engaging in risky activities. It is possible for a person to have a few drinks, relax and have a good time however, all too often people overdo it and end up making bad decisions that they most often regret. Many times, the worst of these decisions is convincing themselves that they are “fine” and what they drank will not impair their driving. Some may say that these individuals simply “made a mistake.” Yes, everyone does make mistakes however, driving while intoxicated is not a mistake that affects only them, it is something that affects and risks the lives of many people and themselves. The sad thing is that drunk driving is one hundred percent preventable and therefore the loss of lives due to the recklessness of drinking and driving is preventable as well. Mr. Bloomberg hit the nail on the head when he said “Simply put, drunk driving is selfish, criminal and it kills, and we are not going to tolerate it.” (New York Times, 2002) Drinking and driving is a selfish act made by a person who seemingly does not care about the people around th...
It is thought that drunk drivers have a long history of doing this and many prior arrests. In addition, most of those killed are just innocent victims whose behavior did not contibute to their deaths. These last two statements are both false. On aver age a drunk driver that kills has never been involved in a alcohol related accident before and have no proir convictions for drunk driving. The part about the people killed are just innocent bistanders is overaggerated also. Most of the drunk drivers v ictims are the drivers themselves, their often passengers, and the drunken pedestrains and cyclists. Despite this drunk driving is still very dangerous. It is the leading cause of unintentional injury deaths in America today. In fact it is said that ab out 40 % of the population will be involved in a alcohol related crash during their life. Drunk driving is especially dangerous to young people, who seem to be more involved than others. Drunk driving is the number one cause of death among young people, accounting for 20% of all deaths from ages 15 to 20. Drunk driving is such a hard thing to overcome though. In our society alcolol is overwhelmingly accepted as a facilitator of sociable interaction, and the great majority of adults drink. But steps a re being taken and the numbers of deaths are declining.
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.
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.