By: Ivan Capalbo

Would you feel safe driving next to somebody who is impaired by alcohol? I would assume not. The drunk driving laws we have today are flawed, and need an extreme makeover.

What’s The Problem?

Let me start by giving you a shocking statistic you had no idea about. Drunk driving is the #1 cause of death on our roadways. You would imagine speeding or lack of attention would be number one, but no, it is something completely unrelated to driving. Giving that shocking statistic you would think the government is trying to do something about it. Unfortunately, they’re not. Deaths related to drunk driving have remained stagnant throughout the years, and that is simply due to the ineffective laws put in place by our corrupt government. To add to that, out of the self admitted 112 million drunk drivers in the U.S, only 1% of them get arrested for driving under the influence. I think its time for the government to reform the current drunk driving laws, and for law enforcement to do their job which is to enforce laws.

What Are The Possible Solutions?

The three main possible solutions to solve this epidemic are lowering the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC), installing built-in breathalyzers in all vehicles, and the most probable one, not being able to drive with alcohol in your system. These three options all seem viable however, each one comes with its flaws and downsides.

Lowering The Legal BAC

The first possible solution to decreasing the rate of drunk driving in the U.S is lowering the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC). Currently, the legal limit for driving under the influence in the U.S is 0.08 BAC. This is equivalent to drinking four beers. Just to show how ineffective the current drunk driving laws are, a person driving within their legal limit will experience trouble controlling speed, and difficulty processing information and reasoning. The logical thing to do would be to lower the legal limit for driving under the influence to something like 0.03 or 0.05. Many countries have implemented this change and have noticed a small improvement. This is due to the fact that most people who drive under the influence are driving way above the legal limit. According to law enforcement, field sobriety tests have shown that the average BAC found in impaired drivers was up to three times the legal limit! What makes you think that lowering it just a little will cause people to follow it? To add to that, lowering the BAC to 0.05 or lower may still lead to a significant amount of drunk driving related crashes. When a police pulls over a driver that they suspect to be impaired, one of the first things they will do is perform a field sobriety test. No matter what the BAC of the driver measures, if they fail the field sobriety test they will be taken to jail for driving under the influence.

Installing Built In Breathalyzers In All Vehicles

Another possible solution that might help decrease or eliminate drunk driving in the U.S is installing built in breathalyzers in vehicles. Proposed by an article written by “The Conversation”, this idea implies that cars will not start if the driver cannot prove that they are sober. Seems like the perfect idea, Right? Well, not exactly. There are many flaws to this argument like what if the breathalyzer doesn’t work and your not able to drive your car even if you are sober? Also, the implementation of breathalyzers in every vehicle would cost a lot of money, and wouldn’t look very aesthetically pleasing. We can throw this idea out the window.

Eliminate Alcohol from Driving

The most probable solution to ending drunk driving is to ban alcohol from driving. This implies that if a person were to consume even one drink, they wouldn’t be able to operate a vehicle after. The zero tolerance law is currently put in place for minors under 21. If a minor under 21 is found to have even the smallest amount of alcohol in their system while driving, they will be penalized. Studies have shown that since the implementation of this law for minors, the rate of drunk driving among minors has shown a dramatic decrease throughout the years. Because this law works so well for minors, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for adults. Of course with everything, there are some small negatives that come with banning alcohol in driving. One of the major ones is that some companies claim that they will lose profit because people wouldn’t order a drink from them due to the fact that they can’t drive afterwards. Most of these complaints come from restaurant owners. My response to that would be that the majority of their sales come from food, and the roads will be much safer at the small cost of not having an alcoholic beverage with their food.

Why Should You Care?

According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) two out of every three people will be impacted by a drunk driving crash in their lifetime. Whether it involves you or someone you love, drunk driving crashes can turn out to be fatal, and could leave an incurable scar in somebody’s life. Don’t think that just because you are driving sober that you can’t be involved in a drunk driving related crash. You are just as likely to be involved in an alcohol related crash if a person near you is driving impaired. Every day, twenty nine people die in drunk driving related crashes in the U.S alone. That’s one death every fifty minutes! With such a simple solution to drunk driving, we could be avoiding over ten thousand deaths per year in the U.S alone.

How To Prevent Drunk Driving:

Believe it or not, even you can play a big part in saving people who might be in danger of drunk driving. Make sure that if you know that you are going to have some drinks, to call an uber on the way back. Also, if you notice your friend or even somebody you don’t know who is under the influence and about to drive, do your best to stop them. Its not just alcohol too. If you notice someone or know that someone is under the influence of a strong drug and are trying to drive, please do all you can to stop them. A DWI can be just as bad as a DUI. Studies show that when people are impaired by alcohol or another substance, they are more likely to think they are sober enough to drive. Lastly, inform as many people as you can about the dangers of having even the smallest bit of alcohol before driving, and ask those people to spread the word as well. You may think that you aren’t strong enough to stop drunk driving by yourself, that is why there is strength in numbers. The more people get educated on the dangers of drunk driving, the more deaths we will avoid due to impaired driving. You never know, maybe the twenty nine deaths per day due to drunk driving is suddenly reduced to ten, just because someone decided to spread the word about drunk driving, and it started a chain reaction.

What Can You Do To Help?

There are many things you can do to help solve this international crisis. There are many organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), Teens Against Drunk Driving (TADD), and the International Drunk Driving Prevention Association (IDDPA). These organizations are joining the fight to end drunk driving, and they can provide you information on how you can help such as donating, and spreading the word. These organizations have accomplished to spread the word to the world about the dangers of drunk driving and how little importance people are giving to it, simply because they are not aware of the severity of it. Unfortunately, these organizations are useless if the government continues to ignore the fact that drunk driving is a really serious issue and has to be fixed as soon as possible. This is why I encourage you to inform yourself about things you can do to end drunk driving, and spread the word to everyone else.

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