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The sobering truth

A Presentation for the Michael A. DeMayo Scholarship Program

MADE BY YEONSOO SARA LEEMyers Park High SchoolCharlotte, North Carolina

+Why do teens drink and drive?

• Peer pressure

• Don’t understand or care about the consequences

• Curiosity

• “That couldn’t ever happen to me!”

But it could.

+It’s only one drink… What could it do?

Impair judgment and movement

Slow your reflexes

Make you unable to remember events

Impair your vision and breathing

Make you lose consciousness.Fall into a coma.

+ Drinking + Driving =

• On average, someone in the US is killed by a drunk driver every 22 minutes.

• Drunk driving causes approximately one-third of all traffic fatalities in the United States.

• 60 percent of all teen deaths in car accidents are alcohol-related.

• Underage drinkers, throughout their lifetimes, will be seven times more likely to be in an accident involving alcohol.

• 50 to 75 percent of convicted drunk drivers continue to drive on a suspended license.

+Beyond the fatalities…

Underage drinking has been shown to lead to poor grades and academic performance.

It has also led to problematic classroom behavior, as well as truancy, delinquency, violence, and crime.

And also, a 40% chance of adult alcoholism. Underage drinking could follow you for the rest of your life.

+ Alcohol is legal.For those 21 year olds and older who drink responsibly.

But, TEENAGE underage drinking is not only illegal, it’s incredibly dangerous for reasons that we may not even know.

• Our frontal lobes are not completely developed—meaning our decision making abilities are handicapped.

• Alcohol’s negative side effects + the undeveloped frontal lobe of a teenager = permanently damaging nerves in the brain

+ It’s always a choice.

+The sobering truth continues… Nearly 75% of drunk drivers involved

in fatal collisions are not wearing their safety belts.

A first-time drunk driving offender has, on average, already driven drunk more than 80 times before being arrested.

Even though all 50 states and the District of Columbia have zero tolerance laws against underage driving, nearly 20% of all 16 to 20-year-old drivers killed in motor vehicle collisions have a BAC level of .08 g/dL or higher.

+From my perspective… Underage drinking already has negative effects. I

recently lost a friend this past year due to underage drinking. It came as a shock—nobody thought that this would happen to him. He had such a bright future ahead of him, and so many people who loved him, and a poor decision changed everything.

But when you put inexperienced and drunkyoung drivers behind the wheel, they could not only be endangering themselves, but the livelihood of others.

+JUST SAY NO. It’s hard to fight against peer pressure, especially when

you’re a teenager. But you can, and you should—especially when just saying no could save your life, and the lives of others.

Here are some ways to just say no.1. No, thanks.

2. I’m the designated driver!

3. I don’t really like alcohol.

4. I have to wake up early tomorrow.

5. I have _____________ tomorrow! (A big event, interview, sports game) By just saying no, you’ve fought half the battle.

+How are others fighting underage drinking and driving? By being MADD and SADD!

32 years ago, 18 year old Marcus Brown died in a car crash with an underage drunk driver. His mother started MADD—Mothers Against Drunk Driving. This national level nonprofit now works to educate young people to stop drunk driving, and to support victims of drunk driving.

SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) was started in 1981 by students in Wayland, Massachusetts. It involves students talking to other students, and peer interaction to highlight prevention of not only drunk driving, but also of drug abuse, violence, and suicide.

+How can you fight underage drinking and driving? You’ve already learned some new ways to just say no,

so that you won’t drink and drive… But how can you help fight the bigger fight?

1. If you’re in a situation where your friends have had something to drink, be their designated drivers. Underage drinking is already illegal, but underage drinking while driving is illegal and dangerous for more people than the driver.

+2. Talk to your friends about it. Drinking might be “cool”, or “just a way to have fun”, but maybe they haven’t considered all of the consequences. Besides the obvious consequences of injury and death, underage drinking could seriously hurt their futures.

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+3. Get the word out, and get involved. Drinking and driving is not a minor issue.

Maybe you could volunteer with MADD or SADD—or start a campaign of your own!

• You can always get involved with ways to tell other people via public service announcement campaigns—maybe via blogs, videos, presentations, and fundraisers.

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Just don’t let this be you.

+Thank you for your consideration.Yeonsoo Sara LeeMyers Park High SchoolCharlotte, North Carolina