Drinking and DrivingEssay Preview: Drinking and DrivingReport this essayDriving under the influence has affected many peoples lives and families. Today I would like to talk to you about the problems of drinking and driving, and why it is a concern for all of us. Driving under the influence is one of the most common and dangerous situations you can put yourself or someone else in. The fact is that drinking and driving is a huge deal and can leave a long trail of broken dreams and hearts. If you drink and drive, not only are you putting yourself at risk, but your passengers and the pedestrians outside of your vehicle. According to the most recent statistics by the National Commission Against Drunk Driving states that 17,000 Americans die each year in alcohol- related traffic crashes and 600,000 Americans are injured (NCADD). Thats is and average of one fatal accident every thirty minutes. Every thirty minutes someones life has ended and his or her family and friends left to weep. Anyone of these accidents could easily be a family member, relative, or neighbor. Most of these alcohol-related crashes are not just cuts and bruises. People are paralyzed, severely disfigured, or have lost the ability to live out a normal life with work and having fun are now activities that now rely on the aid of others.
There is plenty of reasons alcohol and driving does not mix. The body is a very complicated organism with everything needing to go just right for it to function properly. Alcohol only affects how your body functions negatively. Alcohol is a downer that reduces activity in the central nervous system. The person exhibits loss muscle tone, loss of fine motor coordination ( Net Biz Mentor). Depression and alcohol also do not mix. When people get depressed from everyday life they have the tendency to do give in to the easy but temporary solution of alcohol. When people are depress and drink, a beer is like a potato chip, you cannot have just one. “After drinking people usually feel pleasure and become talkative at first. These feelings are usually replaced by drowsiness as the alcohol is eliminated from the body, and the drinker may then become withdrawn. This pattern often encourages people to drink more to keep the buzz going.” ( Net Biz Mentor ). When people get like that they usually get a little bolder and want to do normal tasks and routines like driving a motorized vehicle. The effects of alcohol result in poor coordination, slurred speech, double vision, decrease of self-control, lost of consciousness and maybe even death.
The legal consequences of drunk driving are also severe. The more a person drinks, the more their ability to make important decisions wear down and becomes impaired. After even just one drink a person can lose the ability to operate a vehicle. At certain parts in the state of intoxication, it becomes illegal to drive a car and if you get caught it can possible lead to fines, or even imprisonment. The legal limit of alcohol you can consume changes from state to state, but the penalty of driving under the influence is always severe. Getting arrested and maybe being forced to sleep in a drunk tank is just some of the problems you also have to carry the humiliation and the shame of being caught and that person might just end up with their name written up in the local news paper. Alcoholism is a disease and it can make you do some things you would not want to and to repeat youre past mistakes. More than one-third of drives arrested for intoxication are repeat offenders. Drivers with a prior DUI offense have a much higher likelihood to be in a fatal crash. (NCADD). Repeat offenders also face the risk of ruining their own lives. They have the risk of possibility losing their license and that could also result in the losing of their jobs if their employer finds out about the conviction.
Teenagers and young adults are constantly bombarded with alcohol. From the funny beer commercials with the beautiful women who drink and from friends and other outside influences it is getting harder for kids to resist the lure of alcohol and say no. More than 40% of teenage deaths occur in motor vehicle accidents 38.9 % were alcohol related crashes. (MADD, 2003). Just last year alone 1877 teenagers died as a result of drunk driving (MADD, 2003). These are young people who could have possibly grown up to be the next Michel Jordan or John F. Kennedy. These kids lives were cut short because of alcohol. Did you know that it is believed that the average young person will have seen 100,00 beer commercials between the age of 2 and 18? Teens and other young people are over-represented in drunk driving accidents because they tend to be relatively inexperienced drivers, inexperienced consumers of alcohol, more likely to use illegal drugs, and they have a false sense of invincibility.
[Page 2] The study below makes no mention of the fact that there are a number of specific aspects to young people’s alcoholism and their subsequent alcohol use at the intersection of a range of factors, primarily related to age, sexual orientation and drug use. These are: (1) the amount of alcohol. (2) level of alcohol that is consumed (the amount that has been absorbed or consumed throughout the lifetime). We will focus at a later point on the effect of age and sexual orientation on a number of factors, particularly the effects of alcohol on brain development and behavior.
The Alcohol Content of Young People. This is one of the most important things about the study; it is not only about a potential reason for young people’s drinking; it’s also about the level of alcohol in them. It’s also about how young people drink and how many their parents drink. It can be quite hard for a young person to get the information they need to make a decision whether or not to go through the appropriate steps, since there is no way to tell a teenager whether a parent is drunk or not. What many study after study tell us is that it’s much less of a risk for early adolescent drinking, which is why many psychologists, and the general population today, want to measure whether our knowledge in this area has led to an improvement in the drinking of teenagers.Â
In fact, the number of adolescents on that survey who identified themselves as drinking before the age of 18 increased in the six years before their onset of drinking. They also increased their drinking levels substantially from the age at which they were at age 18. They started drinking at the least once a month in the last 12 months. They began drinking by mid-December, after the age of 20. As teens, they would have been drinking less to begin with. The increase from then on, and the increase associated with drinking, was so great that it had to be treated by a variety of research tools. Some have even suggested that teenagers are especially susceptible to the effects of drinking in order to avoid some of the physical problems that are associated with teen behavior. These are not new findings. In the United States, adolescent drinking is about twice as likely to be a contributing factor in hospital admissions after the age of 18 compared with 20 to 25 years of age. Since alcohol is a major source of childhood obesity, we should expect that in this population the amount of alcohol consumed would tend to take precedence over the amount reported the age prior to exposure. As the prevalence of alcohol drinking has recently been increasing, we would expect that this will eventually mean that some or all of the underage drinking would be happening, and then the alcoholics of the young people would be left homeless. Even though the young people who were drinking at the minimum age of 15 don’t get an estimate of the percentage of alcohol that they actually consume, it will increase the risk of drinking even more. That is why we need to study more about teens and alcohol. Many people with alcohol problems might be able to afford some or all of what can be found at their local liquor store. Many states, particularly in Texas, will provide incentives for alcohol stores. There are lots of available programs such as Alcoholic Beverage Control and Alcoholic Beverage Laws that have been available for many years. This has made sense when comparing the age of alcoholics in some states.
[Page 3] A large pool of studies (25%) suggest that the number of teenagers drinking at the age of 18 at the moment in question is very small. The most recent studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that there was a 6.7% decrease in the prevalence of drinking among teens within the last six months. The data show that the decline was quite large, of a magnitude not seen for
[Page 2] The study below makes no mention of the fact that there are a number of specific aspects to young people’s alcoholism and their subsequent alcohol use at the intersection of a range of factors, primarily related to age, sexual orientation and drug use. These are: (1) the amount of alcohol. (2) level of alcohol that is consumed (the amount that has been absorbed or consumed throughout the lifetime). We will focus at a later point on the effect of age and sexual orientation on a number of factors, particularly the effects of alcohol on brain development and behavior.
The Alcohol Content of Young People. This is one of the most important things about the study; it is not only about a potential reason for young people’s drinking; it’s also about the level of alcohol in them. It’s also about how young people drink and how many their parents drink. It can be quite hard for a young person to get the information they need to make a decision whether or not to go through the appropriate steps, since there is no way to tell a teenager whether a parent is drunk or not. What many study after study tell us is that it’s much less of a risk for early adolescent drinking, which is why many psychologists, and the general population today, want to measure whether our knowledge in this area has led to an improvement in the drinking of teenagers. In fact, the number of adolescents on that survey who identified themselves as drinking before the age of 18 increased in the six years before their onset of drinking. They also increased their drinking levels substantially from the age at which they were at age 18. They started drinking at the least once a month in the last 12 months. They began drinking by mid-December, after the age of 20. As teens, they would have been drinking less to begin with. The increase from then on, and the increase associated with drinking, was so great that it had to be treated by a variety of research tools. Some have even suggested that teenagers are especially susceptible to the effects of drinking in order to avoid some of the physical problems that are associated with teen behavior. These are not new findings. In the United States, adolescent drinking is about twice as likely to be a contributing factor in hospital admissions after the age of 18 compared with 20 to 25 years of age. Since alcohol is a major source of childhood obesity, we should expect that in this population the amount of alcohol consumed would tend to take precedence over the amount reported the age prior to exposure. As the prevalence of alcohol drinking has recently been increasing, we would expect that this will eventually mean that some or all of the underage drinking would be happening, and then the alcoholics of the young people would be left homeless. Even though the young people who were drinking at the minimum age of 15 don’t get an estimate of the percentage of alcohol that they actually consume, it will increase the risk of drinking even more. That is why we need to study more about teens and alcohol. Many people with alcohol problems might be able to afford some or all of what can be found at their local liquor store. Many states, particularly in Texas, will provide incentives for alcohol stores. There are lots of available programs such as Alcoholic Beverage Control and Alcoholic Beverage Laws that have been available for many years. This has made sense when comparing the age of alcoholics in some states.
[Page 3] A large pool of studies (25%) suggest that the number of teenagers drinking at the age of 18 at the moment in question is very small. The most recent studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that there was a 6.7% decrease in the prevalence of drinking among teens within the last six months. The data show that the decline was quite large, of a magnitude not seen for
[Page 2] The study below makes no mention of the fact that there are a number of specific aspects to young people’s alcoholism and their subsequent alcohol use at the intersection of a range of factors, primarily related to age, sexual orientation and drug use. These are: (1) the amount of alcohol. (2) level of alcohol that is consumed (the amount that has been absorbed or consumed throughout the lifetime). We will focus at a later point on the effect of age and sexual orientation on a number of factors, particularly the effects of alcohol on brain development and behavior.
The Alcohol Content of Young People. This is one of the most important things about the study; it is not only about a potential reason for young people’s drinking; it’s also about the level of alcohol in them. It’s also about how young people drink and how many their parents drink. It can be quite hard for a young person to get the information they need to make a decision whether or not to go through the appropriate steps, since there is no way to tell a teenager whether a parent is drunk or not. What many study after study tell us is that it’s much less of a risk for early adolescent drinking, which is why many psychologists, and the general population today, want to measure whether our knowledge in this area has led to an improvement in the drinking of teenagers. In fact, the number of adolescents on that survey who identified themselves as drinking before the age of 18 increased in the six years before their onset of drinking. They also increased their drinking levels substantially from the age at which they were at age 18. They started drinking at the least once a month in the last 12 months. They began drinking by mid-December, after the age of 20. As teens, they would have been drinking less to begin with. The increase from then on, and the increase associated with drinking, was so great that it had to be treated by a variety of research tools. Some have even suggested that teenagers are especially susceptible to the effects of drinking in order to avoid some of the physical problems that are associated with teen behavior. These are not new findings. In the United States, adolescent drinking is about twice as likely to be a contributing factor in hospital admissions after the age of 18 compared with 20 to 25 years of age. Since alcohol is a major source of childhood obesity, we should expect that in this population the amount of alcohol consumed would tend to take precedence over the amount reported the age prior to exposure. As the prevalence of alcohol drinking has recently been increasing, we would expect that this will eventually mean that some or all of the underage drinking would be happening, and then the alcoholics of the young people would be left homeless. Even though the young people who were drinking at the minimum age of 15 don’t get an estimate of the percentage of alcohol that they actually consume, it will increase the risk of drinking even more. That is why we need to study more about teens and alcohol. Many people with alcohol problems might be able to afford some or all of what can be found at their local liquor store. Many states, particularly in Texas, will provide incentives for alcohol stores. There are lots of available programs such as Alcoholic Beverage Control and Alcoholic Beverage Laws that have been available for many years. This has made sense when comparing the age of alcoholics in some states.
[Page 3] A large pool of studies (25%) suggest that the number of teenagers drinking at the age of 18 at the moment in question is very small. The most recent studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that there was a 6.7% decrease in the prevalence of drinking among teens within the last six months. The data show that the decline was quite large, of a magnitude not seen for