Minors and drunk driving
An empty tequila bottle left in the student parking lot (Sophia Hughes, The Puma Prensa)
By Audrey Rauh, features editor
In the midst of the holiday season, many evenings are being filled with fun parties surrounded by friends and family. Drinking is a large part of holiday celebrations for both underaged drinkers and legal ones which comes with an increased risk for drunk drivers. Drunk driving is a constant problem that endangers the driver, passengers, and anyone else in the vicinity, and it only gets worse during the holidays. In 2019, according to the Dolman Law Group, there were a total of 390 fatal car accidents involving alcohol in America.
So what exactly happens to your brain when you drink and how does this affect your ability to drive? Alcohol makes it harder for the areas of your brain involving control, balance, speech, and judgment, to do their job. Because alcohol impairs your control and judgment, driving under the influence leads to slow reaction times and a loss of concentration. This means that you are more likely to make mistakes both small and large while driving under the influence, increasing your chances of being involved in an accident. Furthermore, adolescent brains are more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol, so even if a minor believes they are sober enough to drive, this isn't necessarily the truth.
Despite the well-known dangers of driving drunk, there are still a large number of car accidents involving alcohol every year. A study published by the National Public Services Research Institute shows that 33% of decisions made leading to alcohol-impaired driving are based on social and environmental circumstances. Parties and celebrations in particular often promote overindulgence in things like alcohol. And unfortunately for underage drivers, the choices are often to walk home or drive or ride with someone under the influence. This is made even worse as alcohol, affecting your ability to make logical judgments, makes it easier to jump to a decision without fully thinking through the possible consequences.
However, convenience is not the only reason a person drinks and drives; Peer pressure can also play a role. If a group of people are all relying on you for a ride, you might be more likely to drive while under the influence. Similarly, if all your friends are getting into a car with an impaired driver, you can more easily justify getting in as well. For many students, partying is something you keep from your parents. The secretiveness can lead a minor to get into a car with a drunk driver instead of having to call their parents and possibly get into trouble.
The glorification of alcohol only furthers the problem by pushing people to overindulge in alcohol on the basis of looking cool or having fun. Many popular TV shows like Gossip Girl or Euphoria normalize drinking excessive amounts of alcohol even when underaged drinking can have serious consequences—like altering brain development. High school culture also encourages young individuals to go out and party with friends. And while socializing with a group of friends can be fun, the normalization of drinking can put people in serious danger. The media and news can also desensitize people to the tragedies of drunk driving, creating a generation that doesn’t fully comprehend the consequences of drunk driving and, therefore, might be more likely to participate in it. The glorification of alcohol and partying has desensitized people to the true danger of driving while under the influence.
The normalization of alcohol can be especially dangerous when it comes to minors since underage drinking can alter brain development. Complex developmental changes to your brain occur from when you are born into your mid-20s. This development includes the function of cognitive, emotional, and social skills which are necessary to people’s daily lives. Drinking alcohol while these changes are still happening may have significant effects on brain function. The earlier a person starts drinking alcohol the more likely they are to experience a measurable impact on cognitive functions and memory, the NIAAA reports. Furthermore, someone with a history of underage drinking is more likely to develop an alcohol use disorder and mental health disorders, driving someone to drink more, repeating the downward cycle of alcohol indulgence and spiking the risk for bad decisions.
Whatever the reason, driving while under the influence is extremely prevalent in our society. It seems that almost every month there is a new horror story about drunk driving that resulted in a horrible accident. But what many tend to forget is that the citizens harmed in these horror stories are real people. People just like you. People who didn’t set out to drive while drunk and get into a car accident that resulted in the death of multiple people. You might think you have heard this before, just like you might think you will be the exception, but you won’t be. No matter the reason, it is never worth the risk.