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How drinking affects driving ability essay
Teen drunk driving conviction
How drinking affects driving ability essay
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Right now, if you are 15 ½, you can drive with a driving instructor. For many teens, getting their driver's license, is a rite of passage, but for many other teens, it may be a huge mistake. In America, motor vehicle crashes is the leading cause of deaths among teens. Teens, ages 16 through 19, are three times more likely to be involved in a fatal car crash.
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.
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Part of being a responsible driver, is to wear your seat-belt. In 2012, only 55% of teens said that they use their seatbelt. Without using a seatbelt, there is a huge risk of injury, if they were to be involved in a wreck. Drowsy driving can also be a danger to teens.
Drowsy driving is the cause of 100,000 car crashes per year. Teens need about 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night, but only 15% reported that they get 8 ½ hours of sleep. With this lack of sleep, this can lead to dangers behind the wheel. When you do not get enough sleep, you are putting yourself, and surrounding drivers in danger, once you get behind the wheel.
Teenagers’ brains are not fully developed. White matter begins to spread from the back, to the front of the brain, at around twenty years of age. The frontal lobe, which is not fully developed during teen years, is responsible for motor skills, emotional maturity, and risk-taking. Lack of development in the frontal lobe, can lead to teens increased desire to make risks, and to perform complex maneuvers. The younger the driver, the more likely they are to underestimate situations.
According to Debate.org, 37% of teens believe that the driving age should be raised, and 63% believe that it should remain where it is. Some people claim that it is hard enough to for teens to get around, the way that the driving age is, but others think that teenage driving is a danger. There are even some people who believe that the age should be lowered! Some people believe that it is about responsibility, not age. Some people think that since teens are involved in before and after school activities, then they should be able to drive
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I. Introduction A. Should 16 year old teenagers be able to drive? B. “Those who favor raising the driving age say that statistics show teenagers are more likely to get into accidents than adults. What they don't say is that statistics also show that men of all ages are 77 percent more likely to kill someone while driving than women.
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.
In the state of Arizona, teenagers that are 15 years and six months can apply for their learner’s permit. A written driving test of basic driving laws and rules is then taken. Upon passing the new driver is given six months to drive a minimum of 30 daytime hours and 10 nighttime hours, with a licensed driver present. This allows teens to become comfortable driving alongside a licensed driver before taking on the task of driving alone. After the six month period of practicing, the teenager can take the driving part of the exam to attain their driver’s license. “Crash risk is particularly high during the first months of licensure.” (Teen Drivers: Fact Sheet 1) The need for more driving practice and defensive driving is relevant.
Just like the teenage boy that died in the wreck, most young teen drivers think they are invincible and are owners of the road which is all due to lack of maturity. The mind set of young drivers now days is “I’m too young to die”, or “it wont happen to me” and they are so blinded by the immature thinking that it gets them in trouble. Some traits generally linked with the immaturity are: chance taking, testing limits, poor-decision making, overconfidence, speeding, following to closely, and dangerous passing (Williams). When you have youthful age and immature characteristics combined the crash possibility is enlarged. The 15-16 age groups are among the most accident prone of most groups (“Don’t”), so why then would we want them behind the wheel? “Most U.S. states license at age 16, but the minimum age for a regular license is 14 in South Dakota and 15 in five other states including: Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and South Carolina”, stated Allan F. Williams. Youthful age and immature thinking is part of the reason wh...
Endersby -. Its not a question if teenagers are worse drivers than more responsible adults. According to a few researchers, a study in the 1990’s said crash-related deaths from sixteen and seventeen year olds were eighteen per 100,000 in New Jersey, and twenty-six per 100,000 in Connecticut. More than 5,000 teens in the U.S. die every year in car crashes. The National Highway Safety Administration said that the rate of crashes per mile driven for beginner drivers was almost ten times the rate of drivers thirty to fifty-nine.
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 is something people do everyday. Although many people do it well, some do not, that being said the legal age to drive should be raised to twenty one years of age. The driving age should be raised because teens at the ages of fourteen through twenty should not be behind the wheel for the simple fact that they are just too young and too inexperienced to drive, also someone of that age can get more distracted than a person who is twenty-one or older and has had some time to mature and become responsible enough to operate a motor vehicle. “In the United States, 16–19-year-olds have the highest incidence of motor vehicle deaths among licensed drivers and motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among 15–20-year-olds.” (Haggerty
According to Levinthal (2011), alcohol is called the hidden drug because an alcoholic does not need to find a drug dealer on the street; instead it is legally available and has no criminal sanctions attached to its use; alcoholism is therefore easily hidden from friends and family. Unfortunately, drunk driving is the leading cause of deaths on roadways, and in addition causes hundreds of boating accidents as well. Fortunately, with the legal drinking age set at twenty one and the reduction in the BAC level of intoxication set to 0.08, there have been positive results in minimizing alcohol related deaths annually.
Teens should not have to wait until they earn a high school diploma to drive. When a teen graduates high school they will have to go out into the real world with no experience of driving. If they get it two years prior to graduating there is plenty of
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.
Engines roaring and cars flying down the highway recklessly, racing to the finish. This is a stereotyped outlook on teen drivers. This however, is not the case. Teens don’t drive to race down the road. They drive for freedom. They drive to get where they need to be on their own. The driving age should not be raised to 18 because it takes away their feeling of freedom, Denies the access to needed transportation, denies experience, It puts additional stress on parents, and they need to be learning the driving skill while they’re young.
Sixteen year olds have a higher crash rate than drivers of any other age. “ in 2011, teenagers accounted for 10 percent of motor vehicle crash deaths” (Teen Driving Statistics). For this purpose, Many states have begun to raise the age limit by imposing restrictions on sixteen years old drivers. For example, limiting the number of passengers they can carry while driving. “The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety released a report in May 2012 that showed that the risk of 16- or 17-year old drivers being killed in a crash increases with each additional teenage passenger in the vehicle. The risk increases 44 percent with one passenger; it doubles with two passengers, and quadruples with three or more passengers. The study analyzed crash data and the number of miles driven by 16- and 17-year olds” (Teen Driving Statistics). Another example, is that many people believe that teenage drivers have a race boy/girl mentality. This mean that when any teenager gets into a vehicle of any kind they get some type of thrilled or that the driving laws do not accommodate them in any way, shape, or form. They would go drag race ...
As expected, most if not all teens will disagree with that. But there are some safe teen drivers that are thrown into the bad teen driving category just because they are a teenager that drives. If there are some good teen drivers, then do all teens really need more drivers education? Samantha Williams is a senior at Winchester Community High School that has an answer to this question. “I do consider myself to be a safe driver. I’m always aware of my surroundings when I’m driving, and I always stay away from any distractions” (Question 1). She is intentionally aware of her surroundings and stays focused while driving. The government should not make more regulations and rules for all teen drivers when there are many teen drivers like Samantha on the roads. There are even some adults that believe not all teen drivers are bad drivers. Gregory explains, “ The teen driving issues are not about age and maturity as they are about making good choices and demonstrating exceptional behavior, whether they start that driving experience at 16, 17, or 18” (1). Many teens and parents seem to think the government has not made the best decisions recently when it comes to
How old is old enough to drive? Most would argue the legal driving age of sixteen seems appropriate for someone to begin taking the wheel, while others say that twenty-one is a more sufficient age. Even though raising or maintaining the driving age at sixteen contain both pros and cons, major facts need to come to consideration if the driving age ever increases. As a teenager driving, I believe that people wanting to raise the driving age do not realize the negative effect that that would cause. For instance, if the age increased, teenagers would lose independence and freedom, parents would have to sacrifice their time and freedom, and even though teenagers die in car crashes every year, it would not decrease the overall number of deaths per year.
The article Should 16-year-olds drive? written by Ted Gregory, describes that “the front portion of the brain—which includes control of impulses, judgement and decision-making, and the coordination of multi-tasking—matures when 18.” Eighteen is at the beginning of adult life and that is when people grow and develop. According to the possible contributing circumstances listed on crash reports, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation detailed that sixteen year olds are more likely to be reported as “exceeding the speed limit, driving too fast for conditions, failing to yield right-of-way, failing to control, following too close, and driving inattentively.” Sixteen year olds underestimate the dangers of the road. Some people would say that teens now a days are more cautious and aware of dangers of the road due to social media awareness. However, Edgar Snyder, a law firm representing injured people, revealed that 32.8 percent of high school students aged sixteen to seventeen have admitted to texting while driving. Other than the fact that sixteen year olds are not mentally independent, they are also not financially