The Median Of Blood Alcohol Levels Of The High Risk Drivers

Drinking and driving is said to be the primary contributor to automotive related deaths. “By law, a driver is considered to be impaired by alcohol if his or her blood alcohol content is 0.08 percent or higher” (Holzmueller). As a matter of fact, “in 2010, about 86 percent of all fatalities alcohol-involved crashes were in cases where a driver or pedestrian had a BAC of .08 or higher” (“The Economic and Societal Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes, 2010” 147). Laws and penalties have been created and applied in recent years that make it more difficult to get away with drinking and driving. If drivers are charged with alcohol-impaired driving, “they face suspension or revocation of their license” (Holzmueller).

Substance abuse is a key component to the problems that we face today as a society. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("Alcohol-Impaired Driving", 2009) in 2009, 32% of all motor vehicle traffic fatalities in the United States were due to alcohol-impaired driving crashes. Surveys were also conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Compton, & Berning, 2009) so researchers were able to estimate not only the prevalence of drinking and driving, but for the first time they were also able to collect data on the number of drivers who were under the influence of drugs that impaired their abilities. In this data, it was found that 16% of weekend night time drivers tested positive for impairing drugs, in contrast to the 2% of drivers who were at the legal alcohol limit; making drugs 7 times more prevalent. These statistics show that “drugged” driving is a concern for not only law enforcement but also puts other drivers at risk of becoming a part of future statistics.

(Greg Monforton, Statistics). People between the ages of 19-24 account for the majority of impaired driving accidents. In fact, more 19 year olds are killed or suffer from impaired driving accidents than any other age group. It is clear that skill and their level of maturity. Now you have to wonder, who exactly is causing these accidents? Being a male is already a major problem, in fact 87% of fatally injured impaired drivers are male. Also, summer time is considered the “peak” season for impaired driving, summertime accounts for 40%. Another factor is the time of week, as one can assume, the weekend hold the majority of impaired driving cases. Similarly, the majority of these accidents happen at night. The statistics say enough, one who is over .10% BAC is 51% likely to get into a collision. (Greg Monforton, Statistics). Motor vehicle collisions are the major cause of death for 15-25 year olds. Many of these statics are based on the use of alcohol, but there is also marijuana and distracted driving that plays a major role in car collisions. Canadians that are between the ages of 15-25 have the largest cannabis use in the

Thesis Statement: “Drivers who have been drinking are more probable than calm drivers to be included in accidents. Response times of an intoxicated driver may be lessened by up to 10%–30%, vision

Let me tell you that the majority of automobile accidents in America results from alcohol. The alcohol consumed will be existed in blood and it is known as Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC). In this condition, someone will experience lowered alertness which can cause someone to loss of judgement and reduce their ability to track moving object. Beside lowered alertness, the muscle control will be lessened causing difficulty steering and less ability to maintain lane position and brake appropriately. People in a state of drunkenness are also hard to detect danger. It may reduce their response to emergency driving situations.

drivers 16-20 years who were involved in fatal crashes, and were intoxicated, dropped 47 percent from 23 percent in 1985 to 12.7 percent in 1995.” (Teens and Drunk Driving) Each day

The sobering fact is drivers under the age of 21 are responsible for 17% of fatal alcohol related accidents, even though they represent only 10% of licensed drivers (Stim, R. Teen Drunk Driving: The Sobering Facts of Underage DUIs (n.d.). There are approximately 2000 deaths associated with under aged drinking and according to the blood alcohol content of the victims, the main contributing factor is binge drinking, averaging 5 times the legal limit. Research has also shown that more times than not, the underage drunk driving is not wearing seat belts, increasing the chances of a fatal accident. They have found that this # is 74% of the population of drunk drivers involved in fatal

The articles main point is that the legal drinking age changed and how it has affected automotive accidents among teenagers. The legal drinking age was raised from eighteen to twenty-one in 1984, afterwards there decline in car accidents. But the author argues that no one can be sure if the change with the legal age for drinking as anything to do with the car accidents. (“…fatalities fell, but the use of seat belts and airbags may have as much to do with that as

The elderly are the fastest growing segment of the driving population. A person’s crash risk increases beginning at the age of 55. By age 80, it exceeds that of the young, beginning driver. Age and alcohol interact to increase driving risk. This could mean the responsibility of their transportation falls on a family member.

Many studies carried out on the effect of a higher drinking age on the rates of traffic accidents have found out that there has been a significant drop in numbers. A study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found out that the increased of MLDA age significantly reduced the number of fatal traffic accidents among the age of 18 and 20 years olds by approximately thirteen percent (NHTSA, 6). Similarly, a total of close to 27,502 lives were saved between the years of 1975 and 2008. Hence, lowering the MLDA to 18 would only mean more traffic accidents and fatalities among the

“From all evidence available we need to try and address the one in five collisions which relate to young drivers in their first six months of driving, so I propose a two element approach:

          Alcohol is the most widely used drug among youth. It causes serious and potentially life-threatening problems for this population. Research indicates that drinking is associated with risk-taking and sensation-seeking behavior among adolescents. Alcohol has disinhibiting effects that may increase the likelihood of unsafe activities.In 1997, 21 percent of the young drivers 15 to 20 years old who were killed in crashes were intoxicated. For young drivers, alcohol involvement is higher among males than among females. In 1997, 25 percent of the young male drivers involved in fatal crashes had been drinking at the time of the crash, compared with 12 percent of the young female drivers

In 2010, 10,228 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (31%) of all traffic-related deaths in the United States. Of the 1,210 traffic deaths among children ages 0 to 14 years in 2010, 211 (17%) involved an alcohol-impaired driver. Of the 211 child passengers ages 14 and younger who died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes in 2010, over half (131) were riding in the vehicle with the alcohol-impaired driver. In 2010, over 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. That is one percent of the 112 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving among U.S. adults each year.

“Alcohol related crashes kills someone in the U.S. every 22 minutes. At any minute, one of 50 drivers on the road is drunk and every weekend night, one out of 10 is drunk.(Kypri, 1994).” This quote means In United State, every 22 minutes there was a person killed by car accident involving alcohol. One of 50 drivers on the road was drunk at any minute; one of 10 is drunk in weekend night. The quote shows the number of traffic fatalities annually related to alcohol, do you realized what does those numbers truly represented? Those are the examples of drunk drive that got people killed in the life.

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