The Dangers Of 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
The states have taken some effective measures such as immediate lecense suspension, lowering the blood alcohol concentration legal level from .01 to .08 for adults and for people under age 21 to .02. Other's such as sobriety checkpoints, public education, community awareness, and media campaigns about the dangers of alcohol-impaired driving. In addition some strategies should be considered, such as those outlined during the Surgeon General's Workshop on Drunk Driving and in the national plan for injury prevention and control. Such strategies include changing the social norm to make alcohol-impaired driving socially unacceptable, limiting alcohol avilability among underaged youth, a lcohol service training for those who sell and serve alcohol, early alcohol treatment and rehabilitation programs, offering alternative transprotation programs for those of the leagal drinking age, and increasing the perception of the risk for arrest for alcohol-impaired driving. States like California have raised the penalty for misdemeanor drunk driving offenses to a maxium $1000 fine and one year in jail. In July, a state law took effect requiring twice-convicted drunk drivers to equip their cars wit h a breath analysis device that prevents them from starting their engines if they have a blood-alcohol level higher than .02%. And after Jan. 1, people under the age of 21 caught driving with a bolld-alcohol level .01% or greater will immediatley lose th eir driver's licenses for one year. In fact Ohio now allows officials to confiscate vehicles registered to drivers with at least four DUI convictions in a five-year period of those who twice allow their vehicles to be used by someone they know to be drun k or without a license. Currently the state istaking away those cars and putting them in a car crusher. Steps like these need to continue to be taken and hopefully the number of accidents will