Teenager Drinking and Driving
Don't end up as part of these Statistics!!

Here are some facts you need to know before you drink and drive or
get in the car with someone who has been drinking!!!

• Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for 15-20 year olds.  In 1999,  3,561 drivers 15-20 years old were killed and an additional 4,614 were injured in motor vehicle crashes where alcohol was involved. (Based on the NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts)  

• The NHTSA estimates that alcohol was involved in 38% of all fatal car crashes in 1999.  A total of 70% of the 12,321 people killed in these crashes were intoxicated themselves while the remaining 30% were non-intoxicated passengers or pedestrians.

• In the last decade, over 68,000 teens have died in car crashes.  Sixty-five percent of teen passenger deaths occur when another teenager is driving. (From NCAAD factsheet- National Commission Against Drunk Driving)

• An estimated 308,000 people were injured in crashes where alcohol was present - an average of one person every 2 minutes.

• The rate of alcohol involvement in fatal crashes in more than 3 times as high at night. Nearly half of all fatal crashes involving teenagers occur at night. (between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.).

• As many as 360,000 of the nation's 12 million undergraduates will ultimately die from alcohol-related causes. This is more than the total number who will be awarded advanced degree.s (L Eigan, Alcohol Practices, Policies and Potentials of American Colleges and Universities)

• Alcohol is the drug used most often by high school seniors. Even though such students cannot legally buy alcohol, over 90% of them have tried alcohol and almost one-third of them report that they have had more than 5 drinks at one time (binge drinking) in the past two weeks.

• It has been estimated that over three million teenagers are out-and-out alcoholics. Several million more have a serious drinking problem that they cannot manage on their own. Teenage drinking problems account for tens of thousands of highway deaths and nearly half of all teenage suicides each year.  Sometimes teens try alcohol or other drugs to relieve depression.  Unfortunately the drugs themselves have a depressant effect, and lower inhibitions against self-injurious behavior.  Some young people who have never expressed a suicidal thought have taken their own lives when they got drunk to ease the pain of a disappointment or loss.   But they only felt worse while drunk, and committed a rash, impulsive act which they wouldn't have done sober.

There are several explanations for the disproportionately high numbers of teenage alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents - explanations that range from the false notion on "teenage invincibility" to the increase in personal freedoms (i.e. reaching the legal ages for driving and later, for drinking). For some, letting or encouraging an intoxicated person to drive seems funny. And, of course, there’s the "I can handle it" syndrome, where the person figures they can "hold" their liquor or that they haven’t had enough to seriously impair them. Few people realize the effect a mere drink or two can have on their system. For instance, teenage boys with a Blood Alcohol level of .05-.10 are a staggering 18 times more likely to suffer a single vehicle crash than their non-drinking counterparts. Teenage girls at the same levels are an incredible 54 times more likely to crash.

What happens at certain blood alcohol levels? At 0.1% (the legal drinking-and-driving limit in most states) a person's ability to drive a car is significantly impaired; that is, there is a loss of judgment and some perception and muscle movement problems. At .2%, most people are "grossly intoxicated"; that is, they slur their speech and have difficulty walking. At .3%, most people will be on the verge of unconsciousness or be comatose. At .4%, death is possible. Of course, there is such variability between people that these are only "textbook" guidelines. Some people are very sensitive to alcohol's effects, while others are more tolerant to its effects. What does "blood alcohol level" mean? This is the amount of alcohol in a person's blood, measured in "grams percent".

People can overdose on alcohol and die either by suffocating on their vomit while drunk or sleeping, or because alcohol can shut down the brain areas that control breathing. Anyone who has a blood alcohol level of 0.35% or above is in danger of overdose (about 14-18 drinks in a rather brief period of time). Second, chronic heavy drinkers can die during withdrawal from (especially) high blood alcohol levels. (Death is usually due to seizures when the body experiences hyperexcitability during declining blood alcohol levels.)

Impairment of driving is due to many effects of alcohol: reduced judgment, increased reaction time, a euphoric "high" that makes the person feel they can drive safely when in fact their ability is reduced, increased risk-taking, reduced ability to focus on roadway markers and other traffic, and (when the effects are wearing off) marked drowsiness that can lead to decreased attention and perhaps periods of "nodding off".

While the number of underage drunk drivers has decreased 41 percent over the last decade, very little impact has been made with young adults over the legal drinking age. More than half of all fatal drunk driving crashes are caused by 21-34 year olds. Equally disturbing is the fact that posthumous testing (after death) reveals these drivers to have consumed substantial amounts of alcohol, almost twice the amount needed to reach the legal limit for intoxication.

SO.....WHY DRIVE DRUNK WHEN YOU CAN LIVE SOBER!!!