Essay on Theories help explain drunk driving

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

Each year numerous lives are lost due to careless and irrational driving. The disregard for safe driving has been a predicament to the United States of America for years. Many years Police have relied heavily on speed cameras, breathalyzer tests and heavy fines as a deterrent against unlawful drivers. Over the years fatality rates have increased, so the Department of Transportation and Highway Safety has composed a series of safe driving campaigns. On many occasions the Transportation Department informs and advises the public about the importance of responsible driving. They propagate safe driving through the various channels of the media and

Teens who take on the responsibility of being a designated driver are sometimes still pressured into drinking. Teens who get peer pressured into drinking when they know they had a responsibility to drive later often still do. Some teens decide to drink a little bit at parties so it looks like they are trying to get drunk to other teens around them in order to look or feel cool. “While 71% of teens have tried alcohol by the end of high school, far fewer drink to get drunk” (Barker, 2013, p. 6). When a teen gives into peer pressure or takes “just one sip,” they do not always know what they are getting themselves into. "Most kids wildly overestimate the prevalence of

Feldman, R (2011). Development Across the Life Span (6th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

In the instance of drunk driving, the actions of the drunk driver are related to the safety of the drivers within their proximity and therefore affects not only the driver but others as well. Our previous moral experiences allow us to determine what the intentions of the drunk driver might be. Some drivers may choose to drive under the influence of alcohol because they have had an emergency that requires them to be at a certain place and they do not have the means to reach to their destination except for driving themselves. In this case, the context becomes complicated and intricate. However, if the driver is risking his own and other drivers’ safety, it becomes clear that their intentions are based on nonchalance and disregard for others.

A fundamental tenet of Skinner's radical behaviorism is that the probability of a behavior is related directly to the nature of the environmental consequences that follow performance of that behavior. From this basic tenet he derived a set of procedures for modifying behavior by a method called operant conditioning. Specifically, behavior is strengthened, or increased in frequency, when followed by either a positive consequence (positive reinforcement) or removal of a negative consequence (negative reinforcement). Behavior is weakened, or decreased

A researcher named Burrhus Frederic Skinner thought he would develop the idea of operant conditioning. He suggested than we act in regard to consequences (reward or punishment) in which we actively learn. He suggested there are 3 types of these consequences of behavior; positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment. Positive reinforcement is receiving a reward for acting in a certain way. An example of this could be getting a school prize for performing well in your exams, because of the reinforcement of the prize, the student will try to perform well every time. Negative reinforcement occurs when we act in a way that avoids an unpleasant consequence (e.g. not being late to a meeting because you do not want to be perceived as rude). Punishment is an unpleasant consequence that comes from the way we act. For example, gaining a detention for arriving late to lessons. Punishment decreases like probability that behaviour is likely to be repeated. Whereas, in positive and negative reinforcement the chances are you will repeat the behaviour. Skinner’s conducted research in the form of a lab experiment. He used a hungry rat that was placed in a cage that had been especially developed for the purpose of the study and was named Skinner’s box. In the cage was a button and a food dispenser. When the rat pressed the button food would appear in the dispenser. The animal soon learned that

          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

Skinner 's theory of operant conditioning was based on the work of Thorndike that he reviewed (1948). Edward Thorndike studied learning in animals using a puzzle box to propose the theory known as the 'Law of Effect ', responses that produce a satisfying effect in a situation become more likely to occur again in that situation, and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation. Skinner introduced a new term to Thorndike’s theory known as reinforcement (Skinner, 1948). Reinforcement is a stimulus (as a reward or the removal of an electric shock) that increases the probability of a desired response in operant conditioning by being applied or affected following the desired response. Skinner branched off Thorndike’s approach studied operant conditioning by experimenting on animals using conditioning chambers also known as a Skinner box and in 1948

Drinking and driving is one of the biggest social issues for teens across the United States. Getting behind the wheel of a vehicle after consuming alcohol is a very dangerous thing no matter what age you are. However, teens do not think about the consequences of drinking and driving until it is already too late. Many things contribute to this growing problem of teen drinking and driving. First, there is a lack of education about drinking and driving in schools today. Next, peer pressure is difficult for many teens to resist. Finally, the access that teens have to alcohol and to vehicles is not monitored. According to blah blah study, 000% of high school students admit

Within the U.S and around the world, drunk driving is a major problem that is slowly destroying the world around us by making it unstable to the rest of people who do partake in this action by choice or at all. Drunk driving has done a large amount of damage to almost everything we know from destroying whole families to making it unsafe for almost anyone to be on the road or close to it because of these reckless drivers that in some way got behind the wheel of a motor vehicle while in a drunken state making them a force that is a real danger to anyone. Drunk driving is a serious crime nowadays and has a hefty punishment to go with it depending on the amount of damage done while behind the wheel. Taking the action of being behind the wheel while intoxicated is a problem that not only endangers the driver but everyone around them causing problems for everyone and everything. There are different types of drunk driving but most have the same outcome in the end being that something bad ends up happening in the end. In the world today drunk driving is a true problem all over, this issue is spread across the world causing it to be a major danger to anybody that is in the pathway of the driver or behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. With drunk driving being such a major problem all over the world, stats show what places in the world will most likely have drunk drivers on the road. Currently the country that has the most common occurrence with drunk driving is south africa. Other countries that are listed after south africa for most common drunk drivers to occur is canada in second, the U.S in 3rd, australia in 4th, and Italy in 5th, the list goes on. Being the 3rd country in the world to have the most common drunk driver problems gives the U.S a bad reputation. Having this be fact shows how bad of a problem that drunk driving really is for not only the U.S but all over the world, which all cause major problems in some way to the people or the rest of the U.S. The problem with drunk driving seems to be that people don't think that there is little punishment to doing it and being caught in the act.

For the first time I was given permission to drive the car on my own. Mom and dad said that if I drove well that they might get me my own car one day. After a week of driving to the grocery store and driving my parents places, I kind of realized that they only wanted me to drive to places for them. I didn't mind though, I loved driving. One night I was out drinking with my friends and I remembered that I would be driving so I stopped. My friends kept on hassling me about it and eventually I gave into peer pressure and had a few more shots. I went out side in a drunken daze and when I was in the car and gonna drive everyone home, I passed out. I woke up in my bedroom with my parents above me with stern worried looks. They asked what I was doing having so many drinks and I told them that I only had half a beer hoping that they would believe me. They didn't. They took my car keys and left to go apologize to my friends for me ruining their night out.

In conclusion, the findings corroborate that the commonness of adolescent drinking while under the influence and riding while under the influence differ by sex, ethnicity, and strongly related with drug use. It was found that strong related dangerous driving, drugs, DWI, and RWI proposing a sequence of adventurousness behaviors. The possible serviceableness of including the topic of dangerous driving and driving while under the influence prevention programs.

Operant conditioning developed by Skinner is one of the learning methods according to which the likelihood of behavior is increased or decreased by the use of reinforcement or punishment. In case of positive reinforcement a certain behavior becomes stronger by the effect of experiencing some positive condition. In case of negative reinforcement a certain behavior becomes stronger by the outcome of stopping or staying away from some negative condition. In case of extinction a certain behavior is becomes weaker by the outcome of avoiding to experiencing some positive condition or stopping some negative condition.

Alcohol can also cause teens to drive drunk. In the year 2000 sixty-nine percent of alcohol related traffic crashes involved teens of all ages. Young drivers make up seven percent of the driving population they constitute thirteen percent of the alcohol involved drivers in fatal crashes. In 2002 nearly half of all high school seniors reported drinking in the last thirty days a quarter of them were driving drunk. (Hamilton, Wendy