Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Drinking and driving deaths essay
What is the effect of being drunk on the driver
Effects of driving while under the influence
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Drinking and driving deaths essay
A teenage girl is driving with her boyfriend and her friends, who are also a couple. They were going on a double date in a restaurant in the city but there date were cut short because of a crash. A Chevrolet Traverse crashes hard at the driver side of the car. The Traverse flipped more than once and finally landed on its back. The girl’s car was spinned into a pole, making more damage at the passenger side. 30 minutes, medical help arrived. 1 fatality and four injured. The girl received a head concussion and a glass shard in her rib, her boyfriend has a broken arm and a glass shard in his kneecap. The second girl received a head concussion, a glass shard in her hand and is blacked out and her boyfriend received a damaged eye and multiple shards …show more content…
Drunk-driving fatalities have fallen by a third in the last three decades; however, drunk-driving crashes claim more than 10,000 lives per year. In 2010, the most recent year for which cost data is available, these deaths and damages contributed to a cost of $44B per year. This is mostly caused by altered mood, loss of judgement and poor reaction time on the highway. For example, car crashes are the leading cause of death for teens, and about a quarter of those crashes involve an underage drinking driver. In 2016, young drivers, 16-24 years old, made up 39 percent of drivers involved in fatal alcohol-impaired …show more content…
Among persons under 21, drunk driving fatalities have decreased 80%. Despite this progress, we still have more work to do, and our commitment to eliminate drunk driving is stronger than ever. Hardcore drunk drivers continue to wreak havoc on our nation’s road accounting for 70% of drunk driving fatalities, where there is a known alcohol-test result for the driver – a trend that has remained relatively unchanged for more than a decade. In 2016, the rate of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities per 100,000 population was 3.3, representing a 65% decrease since 1982, when record keeping began, and a 49% decrease since the inception of The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility in 1991. There are many reasons why you shouldn’t drink and drive. You could lose your license, you could lose your job, you can face hefty penalties for the crime you committed, your arrest will become public knowledge and you may be forced to live with guilt. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (or MADD) and the president, Colleen Sheehey-Church, have been trying to prevent drunk driving since 1980. Colleen Sheehey-Church joined MADD in 2005, a year after her 18-year-old son Dustin drowned after the car he was riding in, driven by a teen with alcohol and drugs in her system, crashed into a river, trapping Dustin in the vehicle. As MADD’s national spokesperson and
According to national teen driving statistics, 16-year-olds, in particular, are 3 (three) times more likely to die in a crash than the average of all drivers, and they have higher crash rates than any other age group. In 2008; 81% of teenage crash deaths were passenger vehicle occupants, 31% of teenage drivers killed had been drinking alcohol, 55% were not buckled up, and 37% of male teenage drivers involved in fatalities were speeding. Teenagers who drink and drive have a greater risk of serious crashes than older drivers with equal blood alcohol concentrations. Teens do not wear seat/safety belts as much as adults. Teens tend to take more risks due to overconfidence in their abilities. These risks include: speeding, tailgating (driving too close to the vehicle in front), running red lights, violating traffic signals and signs, illegal turns, dangerous passing, and failure to yield to pedestrians.
Each year, about 5,000 teens are killed or injured in traffic crashes as a result of underage drinking and about 1,900 are due to car accidents. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and U.S. Department of Transportation) In the newsletter, safety in numbers by National highway traffic administration and U.S department of transportation “Of all the people who died in motor vehicle crashes during 2012, 31 percent died in crashes involving a drunk driver, and this percentage remains unchanged for the past 10 years” (Vol 1, 2013). Crashes involving alcohol include fatal crashes in which a driver had a BAC of .01 g/ ld. or higher (Underage Drinking Statistics)). Deadly crashes involving alcohol are twice as common in teens compared to people 21 and older. This is because teens’ judgment skills are harmed more by alcohol. Teens who drink not only risk hurting themselves, they risk hurting their friends, family, and even strangers when driving intoxicated. Teens and parents both need a strong reminder that underage drinking is illegal and can have disastrous consequences. According to Health Day News, “one study found that in 2011, 36 percent of U.S. college students said they'd gone binge drinking (five or more drinks in one sitting) within the past two weeks, as compared to 43 percent of college students in 1988. Since 2006, the current law has reduced the rate of drunk driving crashes among young Americans” (Preidt, 2014 and DeJong, 2014). This proves that lives have been saved after the legal drinking age increased. According to an article in Time Magazine called “Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered?”, “lowering the drinking age to 18 would stop infantilizing college students, but it would probably kill mor...
Impaired driving is a very significant problem within our society. Impaired driving is defined in Canada as operating a vehicle (including cars, trucks, boats, snowmobiles and off-road vehicles) while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. It is recognized as a crime under the Criminal Code of Canada. Despite a sizeable drop in the impaired driving rate since the mid-1980s, impaired driving is the leading cause of criminal death in Canada. It is a major issue that is taken very lenient but is far more dangerous than people actually consider it to truly be. Driving under the influence does not only put the person operating the vehicle in potential danger and harm, but also has the potential to do harm towards innocent others. With this being said, the punishments regarding the accused’s conviction of crimes related to impaired driving should be far stricter than the current punishments in order to stop impaired driving within our flawed society. This stated, these are my following reasons as to why I believe that the punishments of impaired driving should be stricter.
In the year 2001 more then 800,000 injuries occurred in the United States from alcohol related accidents, while more than 40% of automobile crashes were due to the abuse of alcohol (MADD homepage). These overwhelming statistics are just a small piece of the very large puzzle that stuns the nation with deaths every year. For some people, these statistics are more than just phrases on paper they are words that are haunting reminders of the tragedies and losses they have experienced in their lifetime. One such mother was so distraught by the loss of her thirteen year old daughter Carrie Lightner, who was killed by a drunk driver, began the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). On the other side of the country another mother was feeling the same pain as her five and a half month old daughter, Laura Lamb, took her last breath after a drunk driver struck their car. Together these women joined forces to share their sufferings with others in the same situation, while striving to prevent future accidents and conditions such as the ones they had just experienced.
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.
“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.
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.
The use of alcohol by adolescents is implicated in about one third of all fatal crashes involving teens.
A DUI case in Los Angeles, California is a common occurrence these days. For this reason, drunk driving has a very low tolerance rate in the state of California, and many laws are made in California that give various punishments for drunk driving.
Drunk Driving is very dangerous and increasing in the United States every year. Every minute there is someone getting into a fatal accident caused by drunk driving. Every year every adult will pay $500 per year. There are 50-75% of drunk drivers that will still drive on a suspended license. One out of three teens will die because of an alcohol related death. An average drunk driver will drive at least 80 times before getting caught (Caron 2013). There are teens every day that face peer pressure with alcohol. It is very easily in today’s society for teens to follow their peers because parents have to work, so this means there never home. Teens 13-17 need to be educated on what could happen if driving drunk.
Teenagers are more likely to underestimate dangerous situations. Along with this, 35% of teens ages 15-20 who were involved in a fatal crash, were speeding, and 25% were drinking alcohol. Driving requires a lot of responsibility. When someone gets behind the wheel to drive, they are not just putting their life in danger, they are responsible for the lives of passengers, and other drivers.
Drunk driving accidents are the number one killer of adolescents (Teenagers and peer pressures. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2013, from). Mixing drinking while driving can be deadly. Teenage drunk driving accidents not only affect the person drinking while driving, but it also can kill or harm others (Alcohol problems and solutions. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2013, from) (Teen drinking and driving. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2013, from) . Every single accident provoked by drinking and driving could have been prevented. If underage drinking is illegal, why do young people do it ? Teenagers usually are influenced by their elders (Alcohol problems and solutions. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2013, from). In the United States, one out of ten 12 through 14 year olds have tried alcohol and continue to do so on a regular basis . There is a more than fifty percent of probability that young adults that have tried alcohol at a younger age may become alcoholics in the near future (Alcohol fatalities. (n.d.). Retrieved November 1, 2013, from). So, why do teenagers take so many risks with their health and behind the wheel? The answer is simple teen drivers tend to think they are invincible and more needs to be done to educate teens on the dangers of drinking and driving.
The growing awareness of alcohol hazards has made people more cautious of their drinking habits, particularly young adults. At present young adults have the highest prevalence of alcohol consumption than any other age group. They also drink more heavily, experience more negative consequences, and engage in more harmful activities, specifically drunk driving. Although surveys have documented a decline in recent years, consumption rates remain highest from late teen years to the late twenties (Johnston1-3). Despite the long-term decline since 1982 in alcohol related traffic deaths, a 4 percent increase occurred between 1994 and 1995 among young adults age 21 and over (Hingson 4). As alcohol-impaired driving persists, legal and community initiatives intervene to help reduce the problem, as well as, continuing research on possible solutions.
The causes of accidents among teenagers are distractions, driving under the influence of alcohol and inexperience. When teenagers allow themselves to be distracted from keeping their focus on the road it lessens their response time to actions that may need to be taken to avoid accidents. Alcohol is another cause of delayed reaction, which in turn can be the cause or reduce the ability to prevent an accident. . Approximately 2,000 underage drinkers die each year behind the wheel and alcohol is a factor in a third of all teenage auto fatalities (Driving Laws, n.d.). Not having the ability to quickly ascertain a situation and respond appropriately, due to lack of experience is another cause of accidents as well as speeding, which greatly reduces
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.