Three people are killed every two hours due to alcohol-related highway car crashes (Drunk). The state of Virginia and even the United States of America continues to let off driving while under the influence of alcohol with minor punishments that do not even ensure the ongoing safety of the drivers on the road. The punishment for a first offender should be imprisonment to make the roads a safer place. The penalties set in place now does not ensure that the offender does not get behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated. The offenders do not learn any lessons by the penalties they are given currently. As the penalty is now, people are not taking this offense seriously. In fact, young people on Youtube have been posting videos of themselves drunk like it is a normal, inconsequential action (Primack). If there was a new penalty put in place that imprisons first offenders of drinking and driving, the numbers of alcohol-related car accidents would surely drop significantly, and stop the younger generation drinkers from thinking it is impossible for them to get in trouble for their action. The penalties for driving while under the influence are too loose compared to how serious the crime is. In the state of Virginia, the penalty for a first offender of driving while under the influence is a license suspension and a fine of a maximum of three-hundred dollars (DUI). This punishment is not nearly as harsh as it should be. Suspending an offender’s license does nothing to ensure the safety of other drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. According to the Mothers Against Drunk Driving website, “50 to 75 percent of convicted drunk drivers continue to drive on a suspended license.” A suspended license does not make it impossible for an offender to get behind the wheel of a car, but having him behind bars does. Having an offender behind bars would keep one less offender off the roadways and keeping him from causing a fatal or nearly fatal accident. Some offenders never learn their lesson that driving while under the influence is simply not okay and is very dangerous to other people and themselves. A statistic shows that, “About one-third of all drivers arrested or convicted of drunk driving are repeat offenders” (Drunk). Since offenders think they can get away with driving while under the influence without any serious repercussions, they continue to do so. By continuing to drink and drive, these offenders adapt to get better and better at being undetected by police forces. If offenders were incarcerated on their first offense, they would not have the time to learn how to get better at being undetected. Also, they would surely learn a better lesson than just having their license taken away and a fine. Having them put in jail or prison would give them the time they need to understand and reflect upon why drinking and driving is a serious offense. Also, having the experience behind bars without much freedom would make a lot of the offenders never want to go through the experience again. There are some that say that imprisoning a person on his first offense of driving while under the influence is too harsh of a punishment. They would say that the offender made one small mistake of drinking too much at a party or a bar, and that does not deserve being put into prison. These people do not realize that these offenders can potentially injure or even kill someone. People that agree that imprisonment is too harsh would most likely not agree anymore if their child, sibling, parent, friend, or whoever they could possibly be close to dies at the scene of a car accident caused by a driver that is intoxicated. These same people fail to realize that a lot of their tax money that gets taken out of their earned money is being used to pay for the accidents that drunk drivers cause. An online article called “Drunk Driving by the Numbers” states that “…alcohol-related highway crashes annually cost Americans an estimated $37 billion” (Chambers). Money is not even just being spent on the crash itself. According to the USA Today Magazine, “More than $23,100,000,000 went for medical care for the survivors of drunk driving accidents” (Drunk Driving Costs) This money could be used for education, hospitals, or to help pay back the deficit that the United States. Instead, it is being spent on selfish people who decide to get behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated. Even if people are not drinking and driving, they surely will not even think about trying to get away with it if their family member, significant other, or friend is put in prison because of it. People would witness the pain and regret of someone close to them and never want to be in his shoes. By having such a harsh penalty against first time offenders, people would be too scared of getting caught drinking and driving and being put into prison. This way, people would learn from a mistake by not even participating in the act. People need to learn that this is a serious offense whether it is firsthand or secondhand. Knowing that there is a harsh punishment of imprisonment of the first offense, people would think twice about getting behind the wheel of a car after a few too many drinks. Every day in America, another twenty-eight people die as a result of people carelessly driving while under the influence of alcohol (Drunk Driving Statistics). The only way to drastically change these numbers is to put down harsher punishments on people who break the law by drinking and driving. If people who drive while under the influence were incarcerated their first offense, they would learn a valuable lesson, and so would the people associated with them. Having offenders being put in prison would mean that there are few less people available to threaten the lives of others on the roadways. Also, it would teach the younger generation from the start that drunk driving is not a “cool” activity; there can be devastating consequences if someone decides to get behind the wheel while intoxicated. There may not be a day where there are no accidents caused by a drunk driver, but changing the penalties to a harsher one is definitely a step in the right direction. Works Cited
Chambers, Matthew, Mindy Liu, and Chip Moore. "Drunk Driving by the Numbers." Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Web. 1 April 2015.
"DUI & DWI in Virginia." DMV.org. Web. 5 April 2015.
"Drunk Driving Costs Are Soaring." USA Today Magazine 1 September 1994: 8. Print.
"Drunk Driving Statistics." MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). Web. 16 April 2015.
Primack, Brian, Jason Colditz, Kevin Pang, and Kristina M. Jackson. "Portrayal of Alcohol
Intoxication on YouTube." Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. 39.3 (2015): 496-503. Print.