Teenage Drinking and Driving - Research Paper Example

A research conducted by CDC in 2008 revealed that, almost 3,500 teenagers who were between the age bracket of 15 and 19 died because of car crashes. Furthermore, 25% of the deceased teens involved in those accidents tested positive to high levels of alcohol count in the blood system (CDC ). Drinking among teenagers is due of immense peer pressure among the concerned age group. Most of the programs aired in the media tend to lure teenagers into drinking since they fail to highlight on the multiple catastrophes of alcohol.

It is therefore evident that drunk driving kills’ people, people become used to drunk driving and people often lose control while driving. One of the causes of teen drinking in USA is the individual’s urge to be rebellious. Most of the accidents correlated to drunk driving are because of teenagers’ rebellion. Some other acts of rebellion manifest through teens staying out past curfew or ditching classes. Universally all teens are famous on their rebellious acts of defying authority (Thompson 16).

There have been several engagements targeted at advising youths against alcoholism, but the rebellious nature f the youths have overridden the efforts. Teens have a tendency of swanking of how they manage to drink and drive as long as there are no negative consequences suffered. Although society views drunk driving as a serious social epidemic, teenagers view it as a comfortable way of massaging one’s ego thus molding and directing them to the path of defiance. When in adolescence stage, teenagers undergo a period when a chemical substance in the known as dopamine is in its highest activity.

Dopamine is responsible for most of the youth desired experiences like pleasure and feel of reward (Sifferlin). Coupled with poor ability to respond to impulse, teenagers end up indulging in undesired behaviors such as driving while drunk, which they view as pleasure. The second cause for the unnecessary phenomenon of drunk driving among teenagers is their reluctance to stop this epidemic. As teenagers, they themselves play a part in the dominance of this social hardship. Teenagers let it happen; they let the river take its cause.

Presently, teenagers have a problem of failing to speak out against drunk driving among teenagers. As compared to the previous generations, teenagers of this era tend to maintain silence even when driven by drunk drivers. A further research conducted by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that in 2007 alone, almost three out of ten teenagers within the US reported cases of being passengers driven by drunk drivers. Teenagers are exposed to lengthy risks since they are afraid to speak out against drunk driving thus endangering their own lives and the lives of other passengers.

Through the actions of teenagers failing to speak up and say NO against teen drunk driving; they are obliquely and inadvertently accommodating the actions committed by the drunk drivers. By accepting such social affliction, the teenagers create a dangerous cycle whose epitome is drunk driving among teenagers (Kelli and Traci). Since their peers fail to mention negative remarks against drunk driving, other teenagers tend to assume that driving under the influence of alcohol complies with the social norms set by the society in general.

The act of failing to speak against the social affliction is in itself a representation of