In the United States 29 people die everyday due to an accident of someone who is involved with alcohol. That’s one person every 53 minutes in the year of 2016. The damages and deaths cost about $44B per year. Crazy right? This is what is called drunk driving. Alcohol is very powerful. It reduces how much your brain works like thinking, caution and muscle coordination. These are things you need in order to drive safely. When the levels rises of a person of drinking to much alcohol so does there nervous system. How does it absorbed your thinking? It goes directly to the walls of the stomach and the small intestines. Then it goes into your bloodstream, where it stays until it’s passed down to the liver. How do you know how much alcohol you have in your system? It is measured by the weight and it’s called Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC). About .08 grams of alcohol can have a risk of an accident. It is illegal in the US to drive .08 or higher. It doesn’t matter if you drink just a little bit it can still affect your driving abilities.
You have to admit drunk drivers are a danger to our society. Not only do you have to look out for yourself while you’re driving, but you have to watch out for others also. No one should have to lose there life because of someone else’s bad habits or mistake of getting on the road while drunk. I don’t believe that’s fair to others, so drunk driver’s must be stopped at some point. Drunk driving has resulted in over thousands of accidents and deaths. When a person intoxicated decides to sit behind a wheel a drive elsewhere, he or she is endangering everyone else on the road including him or herself.
This one decision can make a huge impact on someone else’s life. Not only are you putting yourself at risk but you’re putting others at risk also. You may not think it’s important but this is a huge problem in our society. Whether you want to face it or not. Some may not realize the consequences of their actions from drunk driving, therefore they make a extremely uneducated decision.
What is Buzzed Driving? Buzzed Driving is just another name for Drunk Driving. You may think you’ll be fine to drive but your body has a whole other judgment on that. If you have to ask yourself “are you okay to drive?” then nine times out of ten you probably shouldn’t drive at all. You’re only making things worse when you get behind a wheel. You may think you’ll be okay, but things can get very dangerous really quickly. Like I said Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving whether you like it or not.
Did you know that a drunk driver will drive 80 times under the influence, on average before there first arrest. I didn’t know that but you learn new things every day. Did you know most accidents are leading to the cause of death of young teens. Relatively, a third of those deaths involve alcohol or any other type of drug. Teens that get involved with alcohol at such a young age are seven times more likely to become involved in a crash involving alcohol. Now that’s a big number if you ask me.
See most teens my age tend to party a lot, which later lends to drinking alcohol or even taking drugs at these events. Some kids just think its so cool to do these things. But they never think about the consequences of what could happen next. That’s why I don’t go to parties at all. I don’t understand why can’t teens my age have fun by doing other things. Instead of getting drunk or high all the time. Also, you should never let anyone pressure you into taking or doing any of these things if you don’t want to. At my age we are exposed to so many different things out here including drugs and alcohol.
Did you know that nearly 2,500 teens die in a car crash every year. Now that’s a lot especially when this can be prevented. For example, when teens get so drunk at a party then leave to go home, the risk of a fatal crash at night is three times higher for teens than adults. Now if you ask me that is alot. There is just so much that we don’t know about drunk driving from the statistics to straight facts. Then again some teens are scared to speak up when they don’t feel safe to drive. But they just get on the wrong anyway. Parents should have a long talk to their kids about the do’s and don’ts of driving drunk.
Nearly, have of the teens that die in a fatal car crash from driving aren’t wearing a seat belt. Even though wearing a seat belt can prevent you from death but it can help in a major way. Just to think some people could actually be alive if they had a just worn a seat belt instead of just hopping right onto the road. Also one-third of teens who were killed in an accident were driving over the speed limit. Another thing, riding with two or more teens in a car can definitely double the risk of a fatal car crash. Because you know with you being drunk and them most likely no one is wearing is seat belt. And also they are probably distracting you as well. Driving with more than three passengers increases the odds by 300 percent.
Now, i’m just going to share some of the facts that I learned about drunk driving. Did you know that one in three people will be involved in a drunk driving crash during their lifetime. Everyday, nearly 28 people die as a result to drunk driving crashes. In 2010, over 10,228 people died in drunk driving crashes, that’s one every 52 minutes. And nearly 345,000 were injured from those crashes. Now that’s really a lot from something that actually could be prevented.
“A drunk driver is very dangerous. So is a drunk backseat driver if he’s persuasive” (Demetri Martin). I feel like if you’re in a car full of people and you’re drunk but if they aren’t close to you and tell you that you’re safe to drive you’ll drive. But I feel like if someone really close to you told you not to drive you wouldn’t but that’s just how I feel. In order to stop a person who has decided that he or she wants to drive drunk, a close friend could also prevent stopping them. For example just by saying “real friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” that gives them more accuracy as to why they shouldn’t do it. But you know being drunk will also cause that person to give you every excuse in the world to let them think its ok to drive drunk. A true friend should never let their friend put there life at risk or others no matter the circumstances.
Although nothing can really prevent drunk driving, we can take certain steps such as the education of not only the potential driver, but he or she friends as well, can play a significant role in this. Some people never really consider the legal punishment when making the decision to drive drunk. Knowing that your consequences can go from just a little fine to even the cause of death which is very serious. Some people may not take drunk driving serious until something bad happens or someone gets hurt. You should never wait to think about this while you’re actually driving drunk.
Before taking a sip or even a few sips out of that bottle think about your consequences and what they could potentially have on others and your life. I’m not saying that being drunk isn’t okay but getting behind a wheel while being drunk definitely has its consequences. When dunk it’s almost impossible to conduct duties in a normal way compared to when you’re sober. Choosing to drive while you’re under the influence just makes you a careless driver. Although, some accidents aren’t caused by the drunk driver, the situation just worsens when the drunk driver cannot manage the motion of the car.
Some people might think its harsh when I say this but I feel like when you’re found guilty and you kill someone you should go to prison no questions asked. Because that person could yet still be alive if it wasn’t for the bad decision you made as a person. Out of 900,000 people arrested each year that are convicted of a DUI, one third of them were repeated offenders. Some of these people just pay a small fine and get a slap on the writ which isn’t fair. Also, did you know an average of people who drink and drive have done it 80 times before their first arrest. Some people have done it even more. Only one arrest occurs in every 772 drunk driving incidents. That is just horrible in my opinion.
Even though drunk drivers might not get caught by the law, they’ll most likely suffer an injury or even death by making a bad decision of drinking and driving. One in the three people will be in a crash caused by a drunk driver in their lifetime. That is something I would never want to experience. Now see if they were imprisoned on their first offense, there would be no recurring offenders around to make the same mistake over and over again. Drunk drivers are most likely to commit the crime again, so they deserve to be imposed on their first offense to ensure the protection and save lives of others, especially children’s.
Most children don’t have the choice to not ride with the driver because it’s usually an adult or parent driving. That’s unfair to put children’s lives at stake. For the most part the children can do nothing about it because they’re children. Many children are affected by people drinking and driving. Over seventeen percent of traffic deaths with children involved an drunk driver and over sixty-one percent of those children were riding with them. Noone should ever have to go through the pain of losing a child, especially under the circumstances of a drunk driving accident.
In 2001-2010 in the US alone, 2,344 children were killed in 2,075 crashes involving at least 1 person under the influence of alcohol. We’re currently talking about children under the age of 15 years old. Out of all these children 1,515 were riding with the person under the influence. In 139 of these crashed over two children died wilding riding with a person under the influence. If you want to put your life in danger, cool that’s on you. But, to put little babies and children in danger is just disscarful. Like why would you ever in your right mind think that’s ever ok, because its not. Children should be able to live out their full life. But because some people would rather make a dumb decision those lives were unfortunately cut short.
It’s sad because 61% of the children who lost their lives while riding with a drunk driver weren’t even restrained. If your child is buckled up there’s a big chance that your child could survive the crash. Almost about 70% of drunk drivers survived a crash. Meaning that many crashes were survivable if the child had be restrained.
Drunk driving just makes the roads unsafe. There’s never a time to think its ok to drive drunk, never. Even if someone tries to pressure you into driving under the influence just say no. Yea, some teenager’s might pick and laugh because you said no. But it the long run you won’t regret it for saying no. “Better to arrive sober and late than never” (Anonymous). That quote has so much meaning behind it. Cause really would you rather be drunk and driver not sure whether you’re going to make it to your destination or not. Or would you rather be sober, still have your life but just be running late. Just take a moment and think about the choices you make before doing anything you might regret.
