There are many reasons that the laws for DUI need to be tougher in The United States of America. The ones that are of greatest concern are the death rates due to DUI offenses, the cost of these offenses and the repeat offender rate. The best way to combat these offenses is to make the fines larger, make the prison sentences stricter and make it harder for the offender to get their license reinstated after an arrest for DUI. The law for DUI's is not strict enough we need tougher DUI laws in The United States of America.
Driving in The United States of America can be risky there is one death every twenty-two minutes because of a DUI accident. Americans rank drunk driving as their No.1 highway safety concern. (All-state- MADD survey, 1997) Approximately 1.5 million drivers were arrested in 1999 for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. This is an arrest rate of one for every 121 licensed drivers in the United States. (NHTSA, 2000) Drunken driving deaths have reached a plateau. Preliminary alcohol-related traffic fatality statistics show that 16,652 people have dies on the roadways in 2001. (NHTSA, 2002) According to reports done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) there are an estimated 512,000 injuries to people accidents every year in an alcohol-related accident, if averaged out that is 59 people every hour, also come out to be approximately one person every minute. The driver, pedestrian, or both were intoxicated in 41 percent of all fatal pedestrian crashes in 2001. In these crashes, the intoxication rate for pedestrians was more than double the rate for drivers; that is 33 percent and 15 percent, respectively, according to the NHTSA. Both the pedestrian and the driver were intoxicated in 6 percent of the crashes that resulted in a pedestrian fatality. One report done in 2001 showed that 80% of (11,802) of the 14,706 drivers who had a BAC of 0.01 or higher were involved