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Jorge Cruz
ENC1101/ Jimenez
July 19 2014

Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol


Individuals arrested under the influence of alcohol represent a significant risk to public
health because drunk driving has becoming a major issue to society; furthermore, every year
10,300 people are killed and approximately 345,000 are injured. Each crash, each death, each
injury impacts not only the person in the crash, but family, friends, classmates, coworkers and
more. In order to come up with a long term solution to this problem, we need explore how it
affect society how to prevent drunk driving, and how to increase awareness to it.
To begin with, every year Americans take 233 billion trips in cars; about one out of every two
thousand trips are taken by those who are driving under the influence of alcohol. Yet, almost one
out of every three traffic deaths involve drunk driving witch mean that a proportionally tiny
amount of bad behavior is one of the major causes of death and injury on our roadways. About
two-thirds of the drunk driving problem comes from people who, before they kill or injure
themselves or others, have yet to be arrested. An important survey was made from the United
Estate designing a random digit dial telephone survey which was conducted to receive several
licensed drivers who reported their driving behaviors, their knowledge of state alcohol laws,
crash histories, and beliefs about various alcohol encounters. Throughout this surveys, they
determinate that over 90 percent of the public view drinking and driving as a threat to their own
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safety and over two thirds view it as an important area were public tax dollars should be spend .
However, most drivers did not feel that it was very likely that they were stopped by the police if
they drove after been drinking too much. High risk perceivers felt that it was very likely that they
would be stop and arrested.
Figure 1


Drunk driving is affecting all of us every day by the actions of those who commit the
terrible mistake of drive while they are intoxicated.
According to statistics published by NHTSA, in 2000, alcohol-related crashes in the United
States cost society an estimated $114.3 billion dollars. This included $51.1 billion in monetary
costs and an estimated $63.2 billion in quality of life losses. People other than the drinking driver
paid $71.6 billion of the alcohol-related crash bill, which is 63 percent of the total cost of the
crashes.
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Beyond dollar estimates, the loss of human life for surviving family members and friends is
a pain that never really goes away. Some families are shattered by the death of their loved one.
Others try to bury their grief and stumble through life as if half-dead themselves, refusing to
allow themselves to ever feel joy again. Another point that is needed to be considered is the
after-effects or consequences of drunk driving to the drunk driver. He or she has to live with the
knowledge that their actions resulted in serious injury or death of others. There may be a rupture
in the family dynamic as the individual has to serve jail time, may lose a job, spouse, or custody
of children. In addition, the convicted drunk driver faces fines, court costs, treatment costs, and
increased insurance, if he or she doesnt lose their driving license temporarily or permanently.
Furthermore, various efforts have combined to help reduce the number of drunk drivers and
drunk driving traffic accidents in the United States. The efforts to combat drunk driving in the
United States began with specifics deterrence strategies to punish convicted drunk drivers such
as license revocation for drivers who fail a blood alcohol test or they refuse to take one; that was
a success which change the public attitude and made them view it as a serious public danger.
Sobriety checkpoint had a major help in this issue because police roadblocks set up to check for
drivers who have been drinking. The checkpoints serve two purposes to apprehend impaired
drivers and to increase the perceived risk of apprehension by those who might decide to drive
after drinking.
United States tried to prohibit alcohol use, but it failed, for the continued demand of alcohol
products and the underground economy that developed to supply them. In change, USA
implements the increased alcohol taxes as a potential strategy for reducing alcohol related
problems. Statistics show that underage drinking when teen alcohol use kills 4,700 young people
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every year because of that the community in different states introduced the responsible beverage
service which is a program that have three goal; to prevent alcohol service to minors, to reduce
the likelihood of drinkers becoming intoxicated, and to prevent those who are impaired from
driving. This creates a positive social outing and benefits from decreasing alcohol problems.
Figure 2

They also increase the number of police stops of suspected drunk drivers during high-risk
periods such as holidays, summer vacation, and weekends. This creates a positive social outing
and benefits from decreasing alcohol problems. Confiscating license plates of drunk drivers or,
in some states, issuing special license plates to convicted drunk drivers help decrease the high
risk in public health. Suing servers in establishments for serving alcohol to obviously-intoxicated
patrons who then go on to injure or kill someone in a motor vehicle crash was also a great help in
reducing the risk in population. A Traffic crashes are the number one killer of teens ages 15 to
20, and 31 percent of teen traffic deaths are alcohol. The 21 years old law was a significant
strategy to saves lives by preventing alcohol-related traffic fatalities for 18-20 year olds and the
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rest of the population. Since the developing adolescent brain is affected differently by alcohol
than the adult brain, the 21 year-old drinking age protects adolescents and young adults from the
its potentially negative consequences related.
In addition, we need to bring awareness to it, so this issue could be stop in the future.
There are many anti-drunk driving organizations in the United States, all with the same goal to
prevent alcohol and drug-related traffic incidents. One website that is a significant help to our
society is Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). This initiative was started in 1980 with
goals to stop drunk driving, support the victims of drunk driving crimes, and prevent underage
drinking. Over the years, the organization has expanded its work greatly, especially in the area
of preventing underage drinking. Since the groups inception, MADD has helped pass thousands
of anti-drunk driving laws and made the use of designated drivers acceptable amongst
mainstream society. MADD educates people about drunk driving and offers assistance and
support to victims of drunk driving. The group strongly supports the illegal blood alcohol
content level of 0.08% and was very prominently involved in the campaign to reduce the legal
BAC level from 0.10% to 0.08%.
Other organization like Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) is very popular for
preventing young kids of the age of 15 20 years old to driving under the influence of alcohol.
This organization is a peer-to-peer education program that aims to prevent alcohol use and
abuse in the United States. The goal is to give students the best prevention and intervention tools
possible so that they can intelligently deal with common issues, such as underage drinking and
other drug usage, as well as impaired driving and related destructive behaviors. SADD has over
10,000 chapters in middle schools, high schools, and colleges in the United States.
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SADD started off by getting young people to say no to drinking and driving, but through
the years, the organization has expanded its mission statement. Currently, it works to prevent all
types of destructive decisions, such as underage drinking, drug use, impaired driving, teen
violence, depression, and suicide.
In conclusion, with this major help by the United States, and the organization out there this
significant issue would be decrease every year. Millions of innocents lives would be saved and
prevent from this irresponsible action by those who drive under the influence of alcohol. There
would not be more suffering in families or friends of victims. This would bring awareness to our
society, so more responsible people out there could volunteer to help and educated other to
prevent this global issue.










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