every year. Driving drunk costs the United States 132 billion
dollars a year. It costs on average per United States citizen 500
dollars a year. Drinking and driving can be preventable. Almost
every 90 seconds a person is injured by a drunk driving accident.
You can even prevent it today.
High Schoolers today that use alcohol or other substances
are 5 times more likely to drop out of highschool. Children who
start drinking young are 7 times more likely to get in a alcohol
related car crash. Car crashes are the number one leading cause
of teen death and more than a quarter of them are caused by
underage drunk driving. Teen alcohol use kills about 4,700
people each year, more than all illegal drugs combined. One in 6
teens drink but only 1 of 100 parents believe that their child drinks
alcohol. Have the talk with your young teenage family members
today before something happens.
After all the statistics I just listed, I believe most people will
someday be involved in an accident that includes drunk driving. I
remember my grandpa and grandma telling me a story of when
they were driving on highway 18 by Boyden, Iowa in 1972. They
had their first kid they ever had with them. He was only 6 months
old. As they were driving through Boyden a drunk driver was
heading east and they were heading west as they met the drunk
driver. The drunk driver just turned right into them head on. Back
then they just had a baby seat with their son in it and it flew under
the dash. After the drunk driver took off running away in a
cornfield, their son, of 6 months, was not breathing at the time.
Luckily, another car had stopped who knew CPR. That person
probably saved my uncles life. My grandpa says he remembers
his car being smashed shut. He tried to open and could not get it
open. My grandpa managed to get out of the other door and
chase down the drunk driver. The laws were not