If this one choice can affect your life forever why do people make it? This choice is different than trying to figure out when to go to the grocery, to skip a class or not, eat that extra cookie, or any other miniscule decision. This is driving under the influence. When a person has been at a bar with friends and they have had multiple drinks but they think to themselves “I am fine, I can drive. This is not a big deal.” This is when the problem starts to arrive. They choose to leave the bar and make the decision to get into their car. They are putting the keys into the ignition and starting the car. From here there is a thousand different ways their night can end; and each one is worse than the last. There can be just an arrest involving jail time, fines, license suspension, loss of their vehicle, inability to get a job due to criminal record and much more. Then there can be injuries involving themselves or other people that they hit. Then the worst of them all, there can be death. This can happen to the driver themselves, passengers in their car, or other drivers on the road. This crime is extremely terrible because when someone makes the choice to drive while under the influence, they put their life at stake but also put the lives of other people at risk. Driving under the influence is a terrible crime yet it committed often along with many offenders choosing to repeat this crime. The issue of repeat offenders, along with the crime, could be greatly reduced by introducing more breathalyzers to start cars, bars taking keys after a set number of drinks consumed, and increasing fines or jail time.

After examining the severity of lives lost because of drunk driving along with the problem of repeat offenders, it is important to understand how one gets a DUI along with what is it. There is some basic knowledge that needs to be understood so that one realizes how driving under the influence works. To obtain a DUI one must have a blood-alcohol content, BAC, that is over the legal limit. Blood Alcohol Content “describes the percentage of alcohol present in the blood” (BACtrack). Set in all 50 states, the legal limit is a 0.08. One’s blood alcohol content is typically tested through a breathalyzer, but can also be done so through blood which is rarer due to the equipment needed along with a trained profession to draw the blood (BACtrack). There are multiple factors that contribute to one’s BAC. For example, one’s age, gender, food consumed, the rate of consumption and much more. This shows that there is not an exact science in being able to guess if one’s BAC is over the legal limit or not. From that information, it gets very trickey for people drinking. This leads to people assuming since they only had a few drinks that they are still able to drive when in reality, they should not. Another thing with BAC is that the only thing that can cause one’s blood alcohol content to lower is time. (BACtrack). No amount of water, bagels, vomiting, coffee, cold shower, or other tricks will help lower one’s BAC. People make the mistake of assuming since they have been drinking a lot of water along with their alcoholic beverages they are not drunk. There are many common myths that play a key role in people believing they can drive or that they are not drunk. All these misconceptions can lead to people getting in cars when they should not be.

The tragedy caused by drunk driving is immense. So many deaths are caused by it along with life-long injuries. Yes, there are cases in which driving under the influence just ends in an arrest with little to no injuries, but often that is not the circumstance. It was not the case for Kelly L. Smith Parker, a woman who died due to drunk driving. Her sister in law, Ashley Elizabeth Parker, made the choice to drive drunk which lead to Kelly’s death. The two friends were having drinks at a bar and with Ashley’s abilities impaired she struck a tree ending Kelly’s life and “sentenced all of Kelly’s family to a life sentence” (Rellahan). Ashley made one choice which had catastrophic results: the death of her sister in law, receiving jail time, and imposing great trauma to all those who loved and will miss Kelly. As Ashley states, “I can never take back what happened… there is nothing I wouldn’t give to change what happened,” she is clearly filled with remorse and regret for her actions (Rellahan). This example truly shows how impactful drunk driving can be; and not it a positive way. Ashley’s life will be affected forever not only because she lost someone close to her due to her own choices, she also now has a criminal record. There are so many negative impacts of drunk driving including the largest off all, the loss of a life. This poses the question: must it take a death for people to learn the substantial consequences of driving while intoxicated?

Drunk driving seems so horrific that no one could imagine committing the crime again, but what if no one dies or is seriously injured? What if a person is just arrested and given a fine? If it seems like ‘no harm no foul’ what is to stop someone from committing this crime a second time? This scenario leads to a major issue of repeat offenders of driving while under the influence. This is the case of Donald Middleton a 56-year-old man from Houston. In his most recent conviction he “turned into the wrong lane and collided head-on with…a 16-year-old” and he then proceeded to beg a store clerk to hide him from the officers (Victor). During this incident, he had a blood-alcohol level that was “more than twice the legal limit, 0.08” (Victor). Mr. Middleton is no stranger to driving drunk, he has received 9 convictions for driving under the influence. This is a baffling amount of charges especially for the same crime. One may wonder why was so little action taken in order to prevent Mr. Middleton from repeating this. It seems unclear as to how someone is able to elude the justice system and obtain so many convictions for drunk driving. With Donald Middleton, he was given some jail time but this refers to the first question posed does someone have to die before this crime is taken seriously? This begs for change in that there needs to be something done in order to prevent this crime from happening in the first place along with stopping offenders like Mr. Middleton from obtaining such a large quantity of drunk driving convictions.

Each state varies in the punishment that they choose to award to those who have been convicted of drunk driving. Typically, after the first offense of drunk driving the offender’s license is suspended from anywhere between 30 days to a year (Findlaw). Another thing the offender must do is attend an alcohol education assessment and this is in most states (Findlaw). There is also the possibility of having the vehicle confiscated but this is not very common. There are also fines that can be involved or jail time depending on what occurred with the DUI. Obviously, if there are other injuries involved the punishments will be more severe, but if no one is hurt and nothing is damaged the punishments are weakened. Also, it should be noted that the punishments are set to get worse after multiple offenses assuming that there will be multiple offenses. For example, North Carolina confiscated the offender’s vehicle only after the fourth offense (Findlaw). This goes to show that if no one is getting hurt the judicial system just allows criminals to commit the same crime and in some states, will not even do much until the third or fourth offense. This data informs the reader that the judicial system is lacking in drunk driving preventions and there needs to be a drastic increase in punishment. If one feels that the risk is worth the punishment they will commit the act and this is something that needs to change. People need to view a DUI charge as a serious and terrible sentence not something they could deal with if they had to. The punishment needs to fit the severity of the crime. 

There are multiple ways in which the amount of drinking while under the influence charges and deaths can be decrease. This can be fixed so that tragic stories in the news of loved ones dying no longer are printed. Image if there were no longer stories of those unfortunate high schoolers that had such bright futures ahead of them dying. This dream is possible and there are different plans that can be completed to help this. The first way that drinking and driving can be diminished is by making the punishment stricter. As previously seen, there is very little done to those who are arrested with a DUI. One of the biggest mistakes is the license suspension. On the surface this seems like a logical thing, someone cannot get a DUI if they do not have their license. Where this argument or idea falls apart is that if this person is already breaking laws they most likely have little regard for driving without license. Of course, not every person that drives while intoxicated is a terrible human being but if they are willing to break a law they may be willing to drive without a license. Suspending a person’s license is not enough to deter this crime because if it was it would not still be happening at the rate it is. If a person is already breaking laws no longer having a little piece of plastic in their wallet will effect them. Another way to make this crime more feared is by making the fines greater. People hate getting speeding tickets mostly because the cost of them range in the $200s so applying that logic to drinking and driving if the fee for it rises people will avoid it just to avoid paying the costs. It will then become something that no one wants to receive mainly because it is such a high fine.

Another way to help eliminate drunk driving is by having bars take keys from drunk patrons. This is not a perfects solution because it is difficult to ask bar owners or workers to be entirely responsible for their patron’s actions. There is this issue as to “whether restaurants actually have a legal right to demand customers’ car keys,” but if it can save a life isn’t this something worth experimenting with (Olson)? Also, with programs such as Uber or Lyft where one can easily obtain a fairly cheap ride versus driving drunk and getting an expensive charge along with the arrest. Some trial and error will be necessary with this because it is not done widespread throughout the United States. This would greatly decrease the amount of drunk driving because the patrons of the bar would not even have the choice to drive since they would not have their keys. If the bartenders could take keys of those patrons who have consumed a vast amount of drinks they would be unable to drive drunk. There is the argument of how to determine if someone is drunk and how to know who needs their keys taken vs who is fine (Olson). If the bars can set a limit on the number of drinks that will require them to take keys they would have a set amount for every paying customer. Bars would also need to implement not towing cars that are left overnight. Typically, bars either charge or tow cars that have been left behind from the night before. If this was to be eliminate more people would not feel pressure to drive since they would have the reassurance of leaving their car without worry of towing or tickets. Bars could even specialize that the car has, for example, twelve hours to move or then a fine will be applied. This forces the patrons to remove their cars in a timely manner, but they are still able to leave it behind so they can get home without driving while intoxicated. These two methods would greatly change the amount of people that drive under the influence home from bars or nightclubs.

Finally, one of the best methods to prevent repeat offender is to apply an ignition interlock devices. An ignition interlock device is “connected to the vehicle dashboard…that requires that a driver breathe into the device prior to starting the vehicle” and it is very similar to a breathalyzer (Stim). What this does is require the driver to blow into the device and the device analyzes the BAC. If the device determines that the BAC is within the limit it will allow the car to start, but if the BAC is above the limit it will not allow the car to start (Stim). This ignition interlock device is extremely beneficial because if someone is convicted of drunk driving this can be administered to their vehicle. Once the ignition interlock is placed into the offender’s car they will not be able to start their vehicle if their blood alcohol content is higher than the set limit, typically 0.08 or less. A worry with this device is that is there a possibility that it can be tricked? The answer is that it is very unlikely. It does make sense to have some apprehension towards the efficiency of this device or wonder if someone well versed in cars could disable it. The driver would have to be able to “circumvent the system and the penalties are severe.” (Stim). It is quite difficult to abuse the device or find some way around it. Also, like it is mentioned if someone tampers with the device there are severe consequences to face. Another way this device helps to deter this crime is because this ignition interlock device has a monthly costs which many people would not want to pay. The cost of this device is a $100 installation and monthly payments around $50 (Stim). Overall these devices would be incredibly beneficial and more need to be installed in vehicles to prevent driving under the influence.

Driving under the influence is a crime that is extremely brutal. It can leave families, loved one, parents, and so many more people with their lives in pieces. It effects so many more people that seen on the surface. This is a crime that should not be going unnoticed. This should not be a crime that people are able to easily repeat. There are too many people that rack up multiple DUIs and this is not a statistic anyone should feel safe about. Drunk driving is a problem that effects such a wide variety and it needs to be stopped. By asking bars to take keys of their patrons, have jail time and fines increased for those who are convicted, and have more ignition interlock devices put into action drunk driving can be erased. This is not a simple task but it is one that everyone should be invested in.
