Driving while impaired Essay

Driving while impaired
Drinking and driving obviously comes with multiple problems and consequences, but with problems, there is always a solution. It's only been in the past 15 years that we as a whole have recognized the dangers that come while you are drinking and driving (Cooper, n.d). National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that this year there has people 500,000 people, or one person every other minute will get hurt in a alcohol-related accident. 10,000 will die due to drunk drivers, which is about one death every hour. Around 50% of car crashes that lead to death are caused to alcohol (Cooper, n.d.). Michael Scott from Drunk Drivers says that about 1/5 of people have admitted to drinking and driving at least once in their lives and 94% of accidents occur after 3am when you are more likely to have been drinking for a longer amount of time (Scott, 1).
A person who has been drinking can not only harm others, but can also harm themselves very bad and in most cases end up in jail as a result. About 60% of high school students admit to drinking on an everyday basis or weekends and about 12% of that admit to have been driving while they were drinking or just shortly after (Driving impaired, 1). This number is ridiculously high. It proves that teens are harming themselves just as much as others because they are drinking before their body is done developing. Drinking in this process can seriously hurt them in different ways. It almost doubles the odds of them getting liver cancer (Rethinking drinking, 16). About every other minute someone is injured during a drinking accident. Almost all the time the person who is in most danger is not the person drinking but the people on the other end. Just image how you would feel if you ended someone's life because you made the mistake of driving while drunk. Some people don't think that its that big of a deal and belive that we can wait to address it. Looking at these numbers, the problem is only getting worse. 50% to 80% of the people who have been caught drinking and driving still do it only on an expired license (Rodrigues, B5). When you think about drunk driving, majority of us think that the only problem is the teens, but what people don't know is that its not the teens, its middle aged adults who are the problem. Even though 50% of teens do drink and 12% of that do drive while drinking, middle aged numbers are significantly more (Driving impaired n.d.). One of the biggest reasons that teens drive is only because of peer pressure. They see others doing it so they do it in order to feel apart of the group. \
One of the biggest reasons why drinking is so bad is because it can cause major brain damage, kill cells, make you loose memory, mix up your emotional balance, and make you loose your coordination (Rajewski, B3).