Propensity to Drink and Drive

College Students: Propensity to Drink and Drive

Introduction and Literature Review
Each year more than 2 million college students aged 18-24 drive after drinking; more than 3 million ride in motor vehicles with drinking drivers; over one half million are injured because of drinking; and 1,400 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, most sustained in alcohol related traffic crashes (Hingson 2001). Its shown in the National Survey of Drinking and Driving Attitudes and Behaviors that persons driving within 2 hours of consuming alcoholic beverages in the year 2008 that do it most fall in the ages of 21-24. During the year 2001, over 16,000 motor vehicle fatalities and 310,00 injures in the United States involved alcohol, and a high proportion of these events involved adolescents and young adults (Wechsler 2003). College students under the influence allow alcohol to take over their decision-making.
The start or launch of alcohol use often occurs during the college years. The National Surveys of college-students drinking practices have focused attention on the heavy drinking patterns of many college students. This was defined, for male student drinkers, as the consumption of five or more drinks in a single drinking session, and for female students, as four or more drinks (Hingson 2001). College is often the first time kids are living on their own and are allowed to make decisions without parental advisory. Peers are consistently associated with alcohol use, and although the term “peer pressure” receives a great deal of attention, precise definitions of it are rare (Borsari & Carey 2001). In reality, peer pressure can be a combination of many things, and peer pressure is consistently implicated in excessive drinking of college students. As adolescents get older, they spend less time with their parents and more time with friends, resisting the attempts of parents to control the selection and association of these friends (Borsari & Carey 2001). The selection of choice made by individuals during the college years has peers influencing those choices, making them inefficient choices. Those choices made by adolescents when under the influence can lead as far as drinking and driving.This paper details the propensity on college students to drink and drive and to review the pathways by which peers can influence drinking behaviors.
Peers Influence in college 1
Both theory and empirical findings suggest that peer pressure is a combination of three distinct influences: Overt offers of alcohol, modeling, and social norms (Borsari & Carey 2001). Obvious offers of alcohol can range from respectful gestures to powerful commands to drink. Students comparing themselves constantly with members of there peer groups. They do this to assert whether their alcohol related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are like those of their peers. Second is the information that a student gains through social comparisons are usually inaccurate and the results are biased perceptions of reality. Social norms make it appear that alcohol use is acceptable and ordinary to the student. Students establish peer networks that can be a source of support and intimacy and assist the transition to college by providing role models and social opportunities (Hays & Oxley). Students new to college can be quickly identified when using alcohol regularly, and it gives them an identity in the college world away from the world that their parents might have had control of.
Groups influence 1.1
When individuals arrive at college they have the option to join groups or they are athletes and are already in a group. Athletes and Greek affiliated students are usually the two groups that drink the heaviest in college. Research has shown that students who are in these two groups are at a critical risk for bad behavior (Huching 2011). Groups like Greek affiliation and athletes have leaders that have already identified themselves in college. Peers in these groups influence individuals, that want to join and create an identity for themselves. Since groups like Greek affiliations and athletes have a long tradition of drinking, these groups welcome the new individuals by making them consume heavy consumptions of alcohol. Studies have found that heavy consumption of alcohol is associated with negative consequences, one of them being drinking and driving (Huching 2011).
Drinking and Driving among college students
Drinking and driving is a major concern among college students. In 2005 more than 3.4 million college students drove under the influence of alcohol and 41 % of students reported driving after drinking (LaBrie 2011). In a random sampling of full-time college students at a four-year college in state completed a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire looked at driving after the consumption of alcohol, driving after 5 or more drink, and riding with a driving that consumed 5 or more drinks. The results showed students who attend colleges in state that have more restrictions on underage drinking, high volume consumption, and sales of alcoholic beverages, and devote more resources to enforcing drunk driving laws, report less drinking and driving (Wechsler. Lee, Nelson, and Lee 2001).

National Survey of Drinking and Driving
The U.S department of transportation and the National highway traffic safety administration work forcefully in the direction of reducing the incidence of alcohol impaired motor vehicle crashes. They both looked at a variety of different findings in behavior of drinking and driving after two hours of drinking. Both departments did research on gender and age on drinking and driving behaviors: drove within two hours after drinking past year, drove within two hours after drinking past 30 days, average number of drinking trips, past 30 days. The survey administered to a randomly selected sample ages 16 and older from September 2008 to December 2008, with over sampling of young adults ages 16-24 (U.S Department of Transportation and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 2008). The reason for over sampling young adults ages 16-24 shows that past research has shown individuals within those ages are more probable of drinking and driving after the consumption of alcohol.
The National Survey of Drinking and Driving Attitudes and Behaviors wanted to find out who was committing the act of drinking while under the influence. By conducting they survey by gender, age, and ethnicity that could find out the direct groups that were most prone drink and drive. In 2008 11.773 persons died in motor vehicle crashes in the Untied States involving at least one drivers with a BAC of .08 or higher. This number represents 32% of all motor vehicle crash fatalities for that year, an average of on fatality every 45 minutes where a driver was above the legal limit of alcohol (U.S Department of Transportation and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 2008). This is still and issue that needs to be settled in society today. Approximately 2.8 million college students (ages 18-24) reported driving under the influence of alcohol in 2010 (Fromme 2010).
Hypotheses
H1: Peer pressure directly affects binge drinking and drunk driving in college students?