The festive season brings more dangers on the roads, but all depends on our socail conscience

The title to this article is intended to make you sit up and take notice. With Thanksgiving and Cristmas over, the next big opportunity for overindulgence are almost upon us. Although many believe eating large amounts of food soaks up the excess alcohol, the practical reality is that the amount of food in the stomach does nothing more than slow down the rate at which the alcohol is processed into the bloodstream. Once it's there, you will be over the limit until the level slowly drops over the hours. Every year, the police report a sharp rise in the number of drivers stopped for driving while intoxicated or under the influence. There's a similar spike in the number of people injured and killed. Property damage also rises. Against this background, we come to the results of a new survey. Before we look at it in detail, we need to acknowledge not everyone who takes the time to answer the questions will be honest. Indeed, the moment any questionnaire asks about behavior which may be criminal, the chances of an honest reply diminish rapidly. Nevertheless, some surveys are interesting, as much for what they do not say. So here comes one from SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions). The theory says that the honesty of answers increases if students ask each other the questions. Road accident and alcohol consumption statistics, teenager's view and car insurance trends The background is that, every year, some three-thousand teens are killed while driving and about one-third of those deaths show alcohol present in the bodies of the teen drivers. It would be nice to think parents should take a more active role in controlling the amount of alcohol their children drink but that's impractical. Despite the fact the majority of states have laws which make it a criminal offense for adults to serve drinks to minors, parents both run such parties or allow their teens to go to parties knowing alcohol will be served. A different survey shows about 40% of parents allow their children to drink in their presence at home; about 30% allow children to drink unsupervised. Anyway, this latest survey from SADD shows students aware of the additional danger at the festive season (these college courses are having an effect, it seems). That's why 87% said they would not allow themselves to be driven by someone obviously incapacitated. They are prepared to suffer the indignity of asking parents to come and rescue them rather than risk an accident. Perhaps even more interestingly, 90% of drivers said they would stop drinking if their intended passengers complained they were getting too drunk to drive. Could this be the start of a social conscience? So if we all want to see our car insurance quotes falling next year, we should be encouraging more students to take a responsible view of their alcohol consumption and stay off the roads over the festive season. That way the season stays festive and our car insurance quotes are not inflated by death and destruction on the roads.
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