Combat Alcoholism

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TEENAGE DRINKING AND DRIVING

The tragic statistics are in and the fact remains that car accidents are the leading cause of death of teenagers. This is part of the statistic because there are still some who have lost limbs, have become in a vegetative state as a result of these accidents. Of the accidents, over 50% of them were alcohol-related. “In 2007, 31% of the reported vehicular accidents involved adolescents between the age of 15 to 20 with a blood alcohol level of 0.1 or higher and 26% had 0.08 or higher.
Many formalities have been taken to try to prevent these statistics from becoming worse. Councils have been developed, educators, counselors, parents, physicians are all attempting to bring these numbers down. Some parents and schools short of having to follow the teens and monitor them every minute have taken to using a alcohawk breathalyzer usage to determine either before an event takes place or if the teens have participated in underage drinking and then suffer the consequences.
It has become a public outcry when you view the news and a car full of teens have died in a deadly motor vehicle accident due to drunk driving. Preventative measures are constantly being developed to understand the concept of driving while drunk. Not only for youth but for adults as well. We definitely have to try to work on improving our State by State policies and Federal laws to prevent underage drinking.
It is even more appalling when statics cry out “In a single year, 522 children UNDER the age of 14, were arrested for driving while intoxicated”.
If we evaluate the reasoning for this excessive numbers in teenage drinking and driving incidents, we see a number of issues brought to the surface. We know that we could never be told anything when we were teens, we knew it all - - well that fact has not changed. The fact that teens have the mistaken idea that they are free from harm or untouchable is a seriously prevalent factor. Peers feel that the drinking incidents at the time are funny, and encourage other people to drive. Even amongst adults, the feeling of “I can drive” or “I’m not bad” persists in teens when they get behind the wheel to drive. We know the worst effect is the peer pressure and it seems all sense of reason goes out the door when you are surrounded by your “friends” who think you should all hop in the car and go racing down the street while intoxicated.
Even the person who is doing the pressuring at the time while they also are intoxicated doesn’t even think about the repercussions of drinking and driving. Neither driver nor others around while under the influence of alcohol are making good judgmental decisions.
Many states are lowering the alcohol level in the blood stream, but before they even get to that state and are pulled over, hopefully before an accident is caused, many parents, schools and teen clubs are using breathalyzers to check on the youths. Sometimes the sheer intimidating factor of being tested causes them to not want to “get in trouble” or drink. Some laws are making the places where the beverages were sold to underage teens liable for their accidents. Utilizing all these preventative measures has caused driving drunk not to be so attractive and hopefully will preserve the lives of our youth.

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