Drinking

DUI-Drinking under the influence, can refer to under the influence of drugs(narcotics) or alcohol. We are going to focus on Alcohol. Driving under the influence of alcohol has been a great problem within our streets for a while. Back in 1982, over 60% of the deaths occurring while driving were due to drunk drivers. Over the years it has seemed to go down, back in 2007 it was only 37 %. The decrease is probably due to the increase states have taken on the offense of driving while under the influence. “All 50 states in the US and Puerto Rico now apply two statutory offenses to driving under the influence of alcohol” (http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html). The second offense is illegal if the BAC is above .08%, the first offense is basically based on the officers interpretations when giving the individual the drunk test, speech, walking a straight line etc. Even though all states have these offenses, not all states put a lot of force on them and this is seen by the statistics of fatalities due to drunk drivers, texas still has 45% of deaths due to alcohol. The alcohol slows down an individual’s brain to perceive certain things and so their process of reflex would be slowed down. To truly state a crash is alcohol related only one of the drivers needs to have the alcohol blood concentration to be above .01 gram per deciliter. From friends I have heard many horrific near death experiences with drunk drivers on high ways, and still no police to be found. Even in some cases the police don’t even suspect the driver was under influence due to the fact the driver was a certain age.