Drinked Driving : The Causes Of Mother Against Drunk Driving

“Automobiles are not ferocious.... it is man who is to be feared,” as Robbins B. Stoeckel remarked, enumerates a simple, yet fundamental concept- a vehicle in itself is a relatively safe, that is, until you put a person behind the controls. Further adding to the danger is the ever prevalent risk of a fellow driver being impaired by the usage of alcohol; perhaps the only thing that may make such a situation even more difficult and dangerous is one who is under the legal alcohol drinking age. Fewer situations are more life threatening than when an underage driver has been illegally consuming alcohol, yet persists in the belief that he or she retains the ability to drive safely. Thoughts along this line are foolish at best and deadly at

Corey Friedman’s Lawmakers Target Drunk Drivers, appeared in North Carolina’s “Wilsons Daily Times” on February 18, 2013. In his essay, Friedman, explains new bills and laws that are trying to get passed by North Carolina’s congress. They will target and prevent drunk driving across the state by developing harsher laws and consequences for those found guilty of these offenses. Friedman uses many different perspectives on the issue by restating various North Carolina state representatives, and various group advocates among Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). These many opinions on the new bills proposed to the North Carolina state legislature proved significant recognition of the issue by many across the state along with Friedman.

Drunk driving is a decreasing issue in the United States. However, to keep minimizing the problem the punishments need to be made harsher. “The aggressive enforcement of drunk driving laws, say many analysts, is an effective tool in reducing the number of driving fatalities and injuries,” (Drunk Driving, 1). In the United States, drunk driving claimed the lives of 10,839 people in 2009. (Drunk Driving, 1). Drunk driving should have harsher punishments because they are endangering their own lives, others’ lives, and the victim’s loved ones.

It is 2:20 in the morning when the phone rings. You are automatically startled and jump to pick it up after the second ring. That feeling in your stomach tells you that something is terribly wrong. It is the police on the other end of the line telling you that your daughter has been in a fatal accident. As the officer is talking, you seem to freeze and zone out. Your spouse is up now and takes the phone and talks to the officer to find out what is going on. You are in a state of shock as you both drive to the hospital so that you all can identify your daughter. When you become more coherent, you learn that a senseless fool who was drunk took your precious baby away from you. This is one phone call

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

“In the hands of an impaired driver, a vehicle becomes a murderous weapon.” ( ) Everyone can think of someone who has driven impaired, or even maybe you have done it yourself. The fact that one can think of someone who has driven impaired is a problem. Too many people are getting behind the wheel after drinking, smoking; or are not paying attention while they drive. Impaired driving continues to a problem although strides have been made to make a difference. There are many different types of impaired driving, each that have their own consequences. These types, and consequences will be explored in this essay.

On February 3, 2017, Tim Piazza, a sophomore here at Penn State, tragically lost his life at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house. This horrific event was a result of irresponsible consumption of alcohol and binge drinking. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Around the nation, countless young adults have lost their life due to the thoughtless consumption of alcohol. Unfortunately, the common census between the majority of the average day Americans is that the most effective way to make drinking safer for young adults is enforcing a minimum drinking age of twenty one. This law, as well as the common census, are a direct result from the efforts of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) more than thirty years ago (“Drinking Culture”). MADD’s objective and goal is quite understandable; they want the young adults of today’s world to be safe and not put themselves into dangerous situations with alcohol, but they doing more harm than good. (“The Problem”). Safety is the single objective from each side in this argument, but MADD’s flawed logic and ignorance to reality has formed a belief that results in an unsafe drinking culture, resulting in more deaths, such as the tragic passing of Tim Piazza, unless the drinking age is lowered to eighteen, as well as establishing an open dialogue about drinking itself.

The United States has the world’s highest MLDA, and many citizens are content to keep it that way. Political interest groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), who had a hand in changing the law, insist that a higher drinking age protects communities. They focus on the decline in drunk driving accidents and deaths— something they attribute to a lack of intoxicated under-21s on the road. Recently, MADD has been criticized for stepping away from it’s original purpose and turning toward a “neo-prohibitionist” outlook that demonizes alcohol, rather than drunk driving. Still, MADD members and other advocates of a 21 year MLDA often point out that death rates due to car accidents for 18 to 20 year olds have decreased since the MLDA act was passed, but this can be countered with the observation that this loss of lives has just been delayed a few years, now showing up in the 21 to 24 age bracket. It would seem that newly-legal drinkers are the ones causing accidents, no matter the age.

In 2013, 10,076 people were killed in drunk driving incidents. Out of those people, 65% (6,515) were drivers, 27% (2,724) were passengers, and 8% (837) were non-passengers (“Drunk Driving Statistics”). Over half of those fatalities (67.1%) involved blood alcohol levels over .15% (“Drunk Driving Statistics”). The legal blood-alcohol content is .08%. Drunk driving caused 31% of deaths in car crashes in 2013 (“Drunk Driving Statistics”). In 2012, 402 people were killed by alcohol impairment in North Carolina (“Drunk Driving Statistics”). These numbers, though they seem astonishing, have been cut in half since 1991 (“Drunk Driving Statistics”). Even though the number of fatalities has been lowered, that number is not low enough. Most drunk drivers are repeat offenders. Lives are being taken because of the careless attitude of the drunk drivers. Drunk driving is selfish; those who commit this crime do not think about the extreme consequences of their actions. In North America it is estimated that 1-5 drivers has been drinking and 1 in 10 is legally impaired on any Friday or Saturday night (Root). Many groups, including MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), are fighting to stop drunk driving. Unfortunately, drunk driving cannot be stopped. People will always commit this heinous crime. The numbers may go down, but unfortunately there will always be a number. The only way to continually decrease the amount of lives lost is to increase punishments for drunk driving.

One of the positions that MADD holds concerning enforcement of anti-drunk driving legislation is the use of sobriety checkpoints and high visibility enforcement. As is stated on the “MADD’s Positions on Enforcement” page, “MADD supports the frequent and regular use of highly publicized sobriety checkpoints and other high visibility enforcement programs to detect and apprehend alcohol and other drug impaired drivers, and as a visible deterrent to drinking and driving” (MADD). However, there is some concern when it comes to this tactic which could undermine the status of MADD, such as Kenneth H. Beck’s evaluation of “Maryland’s anti0drunk driving program, Checkpoint Strikeforce.” From this study’s examination of the first three years of the

The chapter I have chosen is the chapter 12, “Interest Groups”, and the Corresponding article that I chose to share was, written by the Famous Interest Group called the “Mothers Against Drunk Driving” (MADD), titled  “Why 21”. In order to understand why MADD is an “Interest Group”, you have to understand the definition. Interest Groups as defined in the text, “...is a collection of individuals or organizations that share a common interest and advocate or work for public policies on behalf of the members’ shared interests” (252).

One can say that the modern movement for holding drivers who take to the road under the under influence of alcohol was created by the death of fourteen year old Cari Lightner on the third of May 1980 in Fair Oaks California. She and her friend were on their way to a local carnival walking in the bike lane where she was hit by a driver who had swerved into the lane the impact threw her 125 feet. It was later revealed that the driver had only minutes before had been drinking in a local bar. Disturbingly he already had three convictions for what was then called drunk driving and did not stop after hitter her. Even with rapid medical intervention Cari was unable to survive due to multiple traumatic injuries.

MotherMothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is a very visible group whose main focus is to educate the public about the harm caused by drunk drivers. A study was recently done that emphasized the problem we all face with drinking and driving. Five hundred accidents that occurred on a Saturday night were analyzed. Two items noted were the number of vehicles involved and whether alcohol played a role in the accident. The numbers are shown below:

This paper explores the research and find results on how drinking and driving has become a big problem in the United States. Drinking and driving effects a person’s ability to operate a vehicle and therefore drunk drivers need to be educated on the repercussions with drinking and driving. Every day drunk drivers are arrested, either for traffic violations, reckless driving, and random stops on the road, or accidents. This paper also examines and explains what happens to the people affected by drinking and driving and what the people can do to avoid it. There have been many cases of injured people due to drinking and driving. Laws have been

If drunk driving laws were stricter there would be fewer death rates for intoxication manslaughter around the world. More than 17,500 Americans lost their lives in drunk driving accidents in 1993 and another 1,200,000 were injured, according to Mothers against Drunk Driving. That is one death every 30 minutes, and an injury every 26 seconds. (USA today magazine p.8). Sadly, those deaths would be preventable if we had more severe laws against this issue. Drivers are aware of the laws and consequences, but they’re not aware of how they are destroying families. Victims’ Family's entire lives are ruined because of the sudden death of their loved one, and they will never be able to reclaim their regular life, while the offenders after a few days