“Traffic deaths from drunken driving have fallen steadily, with those involving teenagers 16 to 19 declining by 39.1 percent from 1982 to 1990, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)”. (Clark, 1992). Even though drinking and driving is a crime thousands of teens continue to get behind the wheel and kill thousands of innocent people in alcohol related crashes every year. There are drunken accidents because teens don’t take drinking and driving seriously. Teens just want to feel the pleasure and they want to feel good but don’t think about the other people or even there selves that they can kill on the road.
I believe the typical 16 year old doesn’t have the maturity level that is needed to be behind the wheel of a car unsupervised. The amount of deaths that are caused by teenage drivers are very high, and are still increasing because no changes have been made. There are about 15 deaths per day from car accidents between the ages of 15-20. ( Teen Driving). Teens also account for 14% of all driving fatalities that occur.
The majority of the people voting for the age limit to drop to 18 are the people who are under 18 or who are 18. They feel that 18 year-olds are prepared to make responsible decisions about drinking (Amethyst Initiative). The Amethyst Initiative believes that lowering the drinking age will only make situations worse for society. But the fact is, these people are not thinking about the consequences and are only looking at the pleasure. “More than 1,700 college students in the U.S. are killed each year—about 4.65 a day—as a result of alcohol-related injuries” (The Marin Institute).
Approximately 1.4 million accidents occur during phone conversations and two hundred thousand from texting.3 Texting drivers may be as impaired as a driver who is legally drunk. Laws should be changed or enacted to prevent senseless accidents, and unnecessary deaths. About five thousand people die annually texting while driving.3 Three-hundred thousand people are hospitalized for injuries obtained from accidents cause by phone use in the vehicle.4 Again no state in the U.S. completely bans all cellular phone use in the vehicle for all age groups.1 Without firm, enforced laws or probations regarding phone use in vehicles this issue will continue to grow worse. 1. 2012, Texting And Distracted Driving Infograaphic, retrieved on 2014, January 27, from:
Only about 60 percent of all drivers today wear their seatbelts, and according to Oklahoma state university, that is one of the leading causes in car accident fatality(“study mode”). According to the NHTSA wearing your seatbelt is the most effective way for any driver to prevent death in case of an accident. From 2004 to 2008 seatbelts have saved about 75,000 lives, and save about 13,000 lives each year says Oklahoma State University. An article from car accidents .com called “seat belts save lives” says, Americans pay about $580 dollars to car crashes every year. If people would simply buckle up, that alone could cut the costs down dramatically.
7/13/12 In the United States distracted driving is cause to more than 8,000 automobile accidents a day. The drivers that are most likely to be offenders to this are the youngest and the most inexperienced on the road. Out of the drivers involved in the accidents caused by distractions 16% of them are under the age of 20. So what are these driver distractions you may ask, they include texting, usage of a cell phone or smart phone, eating and drinking, talking to passengers, self grooming, reading, including maps, usage of a navigation system, watching a video, or adjusting the radio, cd player, or mp3 player. Types of distracted driving varies, there are visual
Argument Essay There are approximately 6 million car accidents per year in the U.S, forty percent of car accidents are caused by drunk driving, thirty percent are due to driving above speed limit, and the other thirty percent are because of reckless driving. There are many causes for accidents and the use of cell phones is the minority of the causes. If the government is ready to prohibit using cell phones while driving, then they should be ready to prohibit many other things as well. This entire debate is nothing new. Distracted driving has been a hot topic since 1905, and there were no cell phones back then.
Even those Bluetooth headsets raise the potential risk of an accident. Even though a person’s hands may be free of the cellular device, he or she is still being distracted by the conversation. Cell phone usage while driving causes 2,500 deaths and 330,000 injuries in the United States every year. People who drive while talking on a cell phone raise the risk of an accident or death. Recent studies show that a person driving while talking on a cell phone has less awareness of the road than a person who is driving drunk.
The clamour heightened in recent weeks following a series of reports on road fatalities and fatal crashes involving motorists in this age group. Accident statistics released by the authorities have also indicated that motorists below the age of 25 years are the group most prone to mishaps. While car accident statistics involving young drivers are quite alarming, it can be argued that such statistics are at best telling only half the story. In their simplistic form, certain statistics on road crashes can even be misleading. For example, when we were told not too long ago that only three out of 10 road accidents in the country involved female motorists, it still did not mean that men were worse drivers than women.
20 December 2011 Teen Driving Video Although the number has decreased since 1986, “According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, auto accidents are the leading cause of death for teens in America.” (Driving Teens Crazy.) On a yearly average, six thousand teens die in car-related accidents. That is more than 15 people a day! Teens simply lack driving experience and do not have the ability to predict and handle many traffic situations. (Graduated Driver Licensing).