Drunk Driving

Drinking and driving is a potentially deadly and destructive behavior that has received a great deal of media attention. I think that drinking and driving is a very foolish behavior that only applies to those who intake alcohol. Alcohol is a drug which can alter the perceptions of the human mind and can slow visualizations down. Driving is a skill that specifically requires great motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Taking alcohol can distort behavior and coordination skills, and most often, accidents occur. I believe that drinking and driving is an easily preventable accident, and should be diverted at all costs. First of all, drinking in its own entity is a bad decision, often made by most of the US population. Excessive drinking can create a physical and psychological dependence on it, and most importantly, can induce a chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, which is currently the twelfth cause of death for the adults in the US. (cdc.gov). This leads to more deaths than Essential hypertension, Parkinson's disease, and homocide (cdc.gov). Most drivers who have had something to drink have low BAC and few are involved in fatal crashes. On the other hand, while only a few drivers have BAC's higher than .15, a much higher proportion of those drivers have fatal crashes (potsdam.edu). The relative risk of death for drivers in single-vehicle crashes with a high BAC is 385 times that of a zero-BAC driver and for male drivers the risk is 707 times that of a sober driver, according to estimates by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) (potsdam.edu). With these facts stated, it is safe to assume that drunk driving can lead to serious injuries and flaws to humans. That's why I clench the belief that drunk driving is foolish and that it can be prevented.