Posted on 12/29/2004 5:41:45 PM PST by wagglebee
More than four million people younger under age 21 drove under the influence of drugs or alcohol last year, according to a government report released Wednesday. That's one in five of all Americans aged 16 to 20.
"That's an awful lot of kids if you think about it," said Charlene Lewis, acting director of the Office of Applied Studies at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which produced the report.
The report, based on a large household survey of drug use, found a small drop in driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol between 2002 and 2003. In 2002, 22 percent drove under the influence; last year, it was 20 percent.
Just four percent of these young people reported being arrested and booked for driving under the influence in the year before they were interviewed.
The report was released Wednesday in advance of New Year's Eve in hopes of raising consciousness of the issue on a night when the risk of drinking and driving is high, federal officials said. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among young people.
The data come from face-to-face interviews in the homes of people ages 12 and up, part of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. People were asked to define for themselves what driving "under the influence" of drugs or alcohol means.
Young people were most likely to drink alcohol and then drive, with 17 percent admitting this. Fourteen percent said they had driven under the influence of illicit drugs, and eight percent reported driving after consuming a combination of alcohol and drugs.
The rates were highest among people who lived in the Midwest and among those who lived outside of metro areas.
Researchers did not have data to compare the 2002-03 rates to earlier years. But a similar survey of teen behavior found that drunken driving fell steadily between 1984 and the early 1990s, as media campaigns pleaded "friends don't let friends drive drunk" and urged partygoers to choose a designated driver.
The rates remained level from 1992 to 1995 before jumping a bit in the late 1990s and then declining a little in 2003, said Lloyd Johnston, principal investigator for the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future survey of students.
"It's not nearly as serious a problem as it was in the mid '80s but it's still a serious problem," he said.
He said that his survey also found that a substantial number of teens rode in cars where drivers had been drinking, adding to the number of young people at risk.
Johnston added that while teens growing up in the 1980s were exposed to heavy media campaigns against drunken driving, that's not true for today's teens. He warned of "generational forgetting."
"Each generation has to be reeducated about the dangers of any of these behaviors," he said.
The faster you drive, the less you swerve. :)
I'm 46 years old and the drinking age was 18 when I was young. Let me tell you, EVERYBODY drank and drove in my Catholic high school! Our biggest worry was that, if we got pulled over, the cops would take our beers and we would have to "hang a packy" (sit outside a liquor store) and get an adult to buy for us again. How quickly the self-rightous baby boomers forget their past. I'm not saying we were smart, or right, to do this. In fact we were dumb as dirt, but this figure of 20 percent is a huge drop from 30 years ago. It's significant progress in educating kids as to the extreme danger of this behavior.
Simple solution:
1) LOWER the drinking age...so kids learn to drink at home, not in elicit high-school or college drinking binges. Help them get it out of their system that drunkeness isn't fun or cool.
2) RAISE the driving age to 18+ and ONLY after EXTENSIVE (and expensive) drivers education.
Germany does this and in spite of the unlimited speeds on the Autobahn, has a much lower accident rate than we do in the USA. They take driving much more seriously... and in a way drinking much LESS seriously (as it is a part of life--not something morally suspect which only adults can indulge in...).
What in the hell does teen sexual activity have to do with drinking and driving, wagglebee?
When I was an older teen, I drank every other weekend at parties (and was sexually active to boot, *gasp*) and NEVER felt the need to get behind the wheel of a car afterwards. It's called having personal responsibility.
I was merely pointing out that the lefts idea of teaching teens to do anything "responsibly" isn't working.
Irrelevant, I got the humorous sarcasm in your message and I appreciated it. It's good to bring a little lightness to these threads because they tend to bring out the worst in some FReepers (mostly the chicken little types).
RE: "I was merely pointing out that the lefts idea of teaching teens to do anything "responsibly" isn't working."
Two points.
1.) Since when is it a "leftist's (collectivists) idea" to teach personal responsibility?
2.) Even if it was a "leftist idea", it would be preferrable to the fundamentalists tendancy to ignore any issue that doesn't fit their extremely narrow moral worldview. A big example, scarily supported by many on FR, is the naive, moronic abstinance-only sex ed that completely ignores the reality of our post-pubescent hormones and instincts so that the fundies can get a warm fuzzy from pretending that sex among the young doesn't exist, or is preventable.
"When a person is young, they are expected to drink, do drugs, have illicit sex, etc. If a boy or girl in the age range of 16-20 does NOT adhere by these mores set by their peers, they tend to be castigated by society."
We'll then, I guess I can expect to be castigated.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.