Informative Essay On Drunk Driving

If a person consumes alcohol to the point they are unable to safely control an automobile and still make the choice to get behind the wheel resulting in a collision causing death, I believe they should, at least, be charged with second-degree murder. If a person with a history of driving drunk kills while drunk, they should be required to serve their time in jail (a long time, I hope) in solitary confinement. Driving under the influence, commonly known as "drunk driving” which refers to driving a motor vehicle while one's blood alcohol content is above the legal limit. Alcohol hinders your ability to react quickly, make proper judgments, and drive as well as you usually do. Social and Environmental Influences are factors that can contribute to alcohol impairment while driving which often comes from friends and the situations their friends helped to put them in. These influences account for many of the reasons to drink and drive. Heavy intoxication often occurs in response to encouragement from friends. For example, friends may promote heavy drinking to feel more comfortable in their own over-consumption. Drink driving is a factor in about 20 percent of all fatal car accidents due to over drinking.

Alcohol-impaired driving fatalities were 1,028 in 2008 for the state of California (Century Council). Of those deaths, 68% of the drivers were considered “Hardcore Drunk Drivers”; drivers who had a BAC level of 0.15+ (Century Council). Unfortunately, the drivers who got behind the wheel of those vehicles now have to deal with the fact that they slaughtered a person(s), because they made the choice to drive their car when they knew they had consumed alcohol.

Although there are many commercials, ads, documentaries, seminars, etc. on the reasons why people should never drink and drive, you would be surprised how many people still get behind the wheel after having had more than just a drink or two. We might not realize it but every day, about 28 people in the United States die in car crashes that involve a drunk driver. This equals to one death every 51 minutes! It’s so sad because these statistics could be way better if people had a well thought out plan prior to going out drinking. There has been research found relating to Drinking and Driving Behaviors since this topic is now becoming more of an issue in this generation than it was in the past. For instance, Schell, Chan, and Morral (2006), found that some people who have a DUI record tend to have pretty high expectations of themselves even after having some drinks in their system (e.g., “I feel more relaxed when drinking"), so with that being said those people with higher confidence were the ones more likely to be engaged in drinking and driving activity. While intoxicated, we often don’t consider any negative consequences that can happen to us but as you’ll see on the news, on social media, in the newspapers, etc. driving while under the influence can be very dangerous and even fatal.

Driving under the influence of alcohol is “one of Americas most often committed and deadliest crimes” (). A financial burden on society, motor vehicle crashes cost the United States an estimate of $37 billion annually (). Impaired driving continues to amplify in the United States, in addition to this, prevention laws differ from state to state. An increase in traffic accidents correlates to alcohol, moreover, “Alcohol-impairment is a factor in nearly one-third of all fatalities” (). The Governors Highway Safety Association (2016) examines the issues of impaired driving and the methods use to prevent and decrease DUIs.

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.

Between the years of 1994 and 2011, over half a million fatal car accidents occurred due to a driver whom was “minimally buzzed”. The phrase, “minimally buzzed” is used to describe a driver who has a blood alcohol concentration of 0.01. Moreover, an adult in New Jersey whom is twenty one years or older must stay below the legal limit of 0.08. Thus, while a “minimally buzzed” individual may not breaking the law, he or she dramatically increases the chances of causing a fatal car accident with each additional drink he or she consumes prior to getting behind the wheel. To further emphasis the argument that buzzed driving can have the same effects as drunk driving, the company Ogilvy & Mather published a visual advertisement. The argument is based

Drunk driving is an epidemic that continues to have severe and life threatening consequences for those involved, if we simply take a few steps against drunk driving we can help decrease this epidemic.

Thesis: Drunk driving is a major risk to yourself, to occupants in the car, even innocent bystanders could even suffer fatal injuries.

Each year, 13,000 people are killed by drunk drivers with a blood alcohol level above .08. Advocates of a new standard for in-car breathalyzers say that most, if not all, of those accidents could have been avoided if the drunk driver hadn't been able to turn his or her car on. If Congress and Mothers Against Drunk Driving get their way, could your next new car could come with a breathalyzer pre-installed?

National Surveys have indicated that over 90 percent of the public view drinking and driving as a threat to their safety and wellbeing,

In the United States drink driving accounts for one-third of all of our driving deaths. Drunk driving has taken 10,076 people in the year 2013 alone and it will continue to rise as we remain the way we are. One person every 53 minutes’ dies from a drunk driving related incident, drink driving is an epidemic that can be stopped by getting someone else to drive for the impaired person. However, the more people that are drinking and driving on our roads the more dangerous they are for the rest of us.

Persuasive Essay Drunk driving is driving a vehicle with excess amount of alcohol in your blood. Every 51 minutes in America, someone is killed in a drunk driving crash. That equates to 27 people everyday. Driving under the influence of alcohol can be very threatening for others as well as the person who is driving the car.

Driving a vehicle under the influence impedes the capability of an individual to drive safely. The people in the vehicle as well as on the streets are considered to be at risk. This indicator directs the link between transportation and negative health outcomes. This measure supports the policies and laws against alcohol impaired driving. The annual estimated cost of alcohol related motorized crashes in the United States is more than $59 billion (Blincoe et al., 2014). In the year 2012, a total of 10,322 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, which is around (31%) of all traffic related crashes in the United States (U.S. DOT, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2012).

A lot of people do not take drinking and driving serious because they take they can make it home safe, but really they either get in wrecks or pulled over before ever making it home. “In 1996 there were 17,126 alcohol-related traffic fatalities, representing 41% of all traffic fatalities that year. In addition, more than 321,000 persons were injured in crashes where police reported the presence of alcohol involvement.¨ ()

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