Free Essays on Drunk Driving

Alcohol and Driving Imagine being in a bar with a few of your good friends. Everyone is drinking and having a good time. Your are going to leave and go home, but you friends won't let you because they know the dangers of driving after having a few drinks. Instead they ca ll a cab to give you a ride home. You would be extremely lucky to have such smart friends. Drunk driving is a very serious problem in our society today, but it is becomming socially unacceptable causing the numbers of alcohol related traffic fatalites t o decline considerably. Drunk driving can be very deadly. Yet many people drive while under the influence everyday. Drivers who are drunk are blamed for the loss of as many as twentyfive thousand lives in highway crashes each year and hundreds of thousands of severe injurys. It is thought that drunk drivers have a long history of doing this and many prior arrests. In addition, most of those killed are just innocent victims whose behavior did not contibute to their deaths. These last two statements are both false. On aver age a drunk driver that kills has never been involved in a alcohol related accident before and have no proir convictions for drunk driving. The part about the people killed are just innocent bistanders is overaggerated also. Most of the drunk drivers v ictims are the drivers themselves, their often passengers, and the drunken pedestrains and cyclists. Despite this drunk driving is still very dangerous. It is the leading cause of unintentional injury deaths in America today. In fact it is said that ab out 40 % of the population will be involved in a alcohol related crash during their life. Drunk driving is especially dangerous to young people, who seem to be more involved than others. Drunk driving is the number one cause of death among y oung people, accounting for 20% of all deaths from ages 15 to 20. Drunk driving is such a hard thing to overcome though. In our society alcolol is overwhel... Free Essays on Drunk Driving Free Essays on Drunk Driving Alcohol and Driving Imagine being in a bar with a few of your good friends. Everyone is drinking and having a good time. Your are going to leave and go home, but you friends won't let you because they know the dangers of driving after having a few drinks. Instead they ca ll a cab to give you a ride home. You would be extremely lucky to have such smart friends. Drunk driving is a very serious problem in our society today, but it is becomming socially unacceptable causing the numbers of alcohol related traffic fatalites t o decline considerably. Drunk driving can be very deadly. Yet many people drive while under the influence everyday. Drivers who are drunk are blamed for the loss of as many as twentyfive thousand lives in highway crashes each year and hundreds of thousands of severe injurys. It is thought that drunk drivers have a long history of doing this and many prior arrests. In addition, most of those killed are just innocent victims whose behavior did not contibute to their deaths. These last two statements are both false. On aver age a drunk driver that kills has never been involved in a alcohol related accident before and have no proir convictions for drunk driving. The part about the people killed are just innocent bistanders is overaggerated also. Most of the drunk drivers v ictims are the drivers themselves, their often passengers, and the drunken pedestrains and cyclists. Despite this drunk driving is still very dangerous. It is the leading cause of unintentional injury deaths in America today. In fact it is said that ab out 40 % of the population will be involved in a alcohol related crash during their life. Drunk driving is especially dangerous to young people, who seem to be more involved than others. Drunk driving is the number one cause of death among y oung people, accounting for 20% of all deaths from ages 15 to 20. Drunk driving is such a hard thing to overcome though. In our society alcolol is overwhel... Free Essays on Drunk Driving 1) There were three national strategies to combat impaired driving that was presented by Chuck Hayes. The three national strategies are: â€Å"High Visibility Enforcement, â€Å"Training more Prosecutors on Alcohol and Screening and Brief Intervention.†(Hayes). The first strategy, high visibility enforcement is sending a message to drivers. This message is to fear arrest, show strict sanctions if caught and jail time/ license suspension, and car impoundment. Strategy two would train prosecutors on alcohol and drugs. This would train them how they can improve the system. For example, sobriety checkpoints, saturation patrols, drug evaluation and classification program, roadside breathe testing, and Per Se Laws such as .08 and above is Oregon’s legally impaired limit to drive. Strategy three is screening and brief intervention which would question if a person is at risk 2) The legal definition of impaired driving is if you can be found guilty of drunk driving, also called driving while intoxicated (DWI) or driving under the influence (DUI), if the state can prove either that you are legally intoxicated while driving, meaning that your body shows alcohol levels above a state-mandated limit. The most common level is .10 percent, as determined by a blood test or breath test, though in some states the level is lower. (In Colorado, for instance you are legally impaired if your alcohol level is .05 percent.) For drivers of commercial vehicles, the level may is usually .05 and lower. Some drugs that also affect impairment are, â€Å"hallucinogens which are drugs that cause hallucinations, Phencycidine(PCP) which slows down the thought process among many other things, narcotic analgesics which are pain relievers that are very closely related to heroin, Inhalants which are fumes that can be inhaled from gasoline, whip cream bottles, and the last drug Cannab is which is Hash oil or Marijuana.† (Rutledge) 3) Five main points from Nigel Wrangham’s p... Free Essays on Drunk Driving Fatal Alcohol Accidents Your three children are asleep in the room next to you and you’re still up waiting for your husband to come home from his second shift job. Then the phone rings and an unfamiliar voice says, â€Å"Mrs. Smith? Is your husband Jerry Michael Smith†¦ Ma’am, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this but your husband was killed in a motor vehicle accident. We would like for you to come down to the station.† Every year thousands of homes receive the same phone call, approximately three out of every ten (FARS 2000). According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the number of fatal alcohol related accidents have gone down since 1980, yet, there are still too many lives being taken away. In order to prevent these accidents, laws must become more strict. In other words, setting up random sobriety check points, longer suspension of the offenders license, or even going as far as impounding the vehicles of repeat offenders. In many cities people are accustomed to being subject to random sobriety checkpoints, although maybe not enough. Some people only see these checkpoints during holidays such as, New Years Eve or the Fourth of July, yet, what about the other times that most alcohol related accidents occur. According to FARS, during the time between midnight and 2:40am, cities render 87% of the total alcohol related accidents(2000). Setting up checkpoints at frequently used intersections and in areas around bars could reduce the number of intoxicated drivers and cause more of a need for designated drivers. Although some people would resent the increase in taxes due to the increase in men the police stations would have to provide to run the checkpoints. By setting up these random checks more often it would also reduce the number of police officers out on patrol, which inevitably could cause more violence in other places. After most DUI or DWI convictions the offender usually has to f...