Drunk Driving Issues Still Plaguing United States
The fight to deter drunk driving seems to have no end in sight. However, officials around the U.S. are implementing different strategies to curb the number of drunk driving incidents, especially around certain holidays.
St. Patrick’s Day was just the other day. Although more and more people die each year from drunk driving and drunk driving on St. Patrick’s Day, people still tried by the masses.
In New York City alone, the NYPD arrested more than 50 people on Thursday, with checkpoints in each of the five boroughs. The NYPD even posted a warning on social media to try and deter drunk drivers, according to ABC News.
In the United States, someone is injured in a drunk driving accident every two minutes. On average, two out of three people will be involved in a drunk driving accident in their lifetime, and as reported by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MAAD), in 2013, more than 28 million people, which is more than the entire population of Texas, admitted to driving under the influence.
Yet despite how many times the message “don’t drink and drive” has been preached, people still are going to do it — and the problem has only been getting worse. The FBI estimates that around 300,000 people drive drunk every day in the United States.
Beyond the sheer number of people guilty of the offense, perhaps the most shocking thing of all is that, according to the National Department of Transportation, approximately one-third of drunk drivers are repeat offenders. Furthermore, the consequences of such acts are devastating: one life is lost in a drunk driving accident every 53 minutes in the United States.
There are new developments regarding interlock device technology that could help prevent future drunk driving accidents. This new technology would act like a DNA strand that would match the device to the driver’s breath. This way, other people will not be able to blow into the device to start the car.
