Drunk Driving Report/Speech May 19 2012

Drunk driving seems to be an issue throughout the United States. Although many Americans seem to be against it they don’t seem to do much about it.

HOW BAD IS IT
Of all the traffic fatalities in a single year, 41% are a result from drinking and driving. In 1999, approximately 2.2 million crashes in the United States involved alcohol. At this rate nearly 17,000 people will die from alcohol-related crashes this year alone. But, some measures have been taken to reduce these numbers such as with the reduction in alcohol consumption and with increased publicity and enforcement of drinking-and-driving policies in the United States.
Most Americans do not see the severity of the problem and tend to look the other way when they come across a drunk driver. They tend to look at it as a normal behavior, but this is not a social norm. Drunk driving should be socially unacceptable. If more Americans would see drunk drivers as a threat then maybe something could be done about. Instead, by looking the other way, they accept this behavior as normal and make the same mistake of driving drunk as well.

            Research has shown that drivers who are on the road later at night have an increased probability of having been drinking. When a nighttime driver is involved in a crash that only involves his or her vehicle, the probability that this driver is impaired by alcohol is very high.

Could you imagine being a driver in a car that was hit by a drunk driver?
 How about if you were the drunk driver who thought that you were okay to drive but realized that it was a mistake when you crossed over into oncoming traffic and hit another vehicle head on. Then you woke up in the hospital and realized that you killed someone in that wreck.

According to Channel 14 news (14 News, 2011) There was a two vehicle head-on collision accident just after 4 p.m. on Sunday February 6th 2011. The wreck happened just outside of Uniontown Ky on Highway 360.
Several police and emergency rescue personnel had responded, they say it had taken them almost three hours to clear the scene.
Chief Ricky Millikan with the Uniontown Fire Department Emergency told 14 News that the accident was one of the worst he'd seen in his 30 years of service, because of the high amount of people that needed immediate assistance.
Kentucky State Police said the head-on collision occurred when a pick-up truck driven by 53-year-old Keith Kinglsey crossed over the center lane and collided into the path of a Mercury Cougar driven by 18-year-old Cody Vaughn.
Kingsley and his passenger, Shannon H. Smith, were ejected from their truck. KSP say neither were wearing their seatbelt. They were both airlifted to Deaconess Hospital, and were in critical condition.
Authorities say the passenger in Cody Vaughn's vehicle, 20-year-old Jacob French had to be extricated from the car. French was taken by ambulance to St. Mary's. Both he and Vaughn were wearing a seatbelt, according to KSP.
The Union County Coroner says that Cody Vaughn was pronounced dead at the scene. The cause of death was blunt force trauma.
More people that break the law and get away with it the more people will do it. If a father drives around while drinking and has his children with him then chances are the children will follow in his footsteps and think that it is ok to act and behave in such a way.
When you combine alcohol and the highway traffic system, evidence has shown that the control of drunk driving will create a significant amount of legal, political, and social conflict. The issue of drunk driving is part of the general issue of traffic safety, and the principal political force behind legislation usually embraces a variety of government bureaucracies concerned with traffic and transportation.

Many people tend to label drunk drivers as, “stupid people”, people who don’t know any better. But maybe they don’t know any better. They have lived in a society that has accepted drunk driving for so long that morally they believe it is ok. They do it, their friends do it, and even people on television do it. Alcohol companies advertise with vehicles, it is everywhere around us. Teenagers seem to think that it is “cool” and “fun.”