Transcript The sobering truth - Law Offices of Michael A. DeMayo

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MADE BY YEONSOO SARA LEE
Myers Park High School
Charlotte, North Carolina
The sobering
truth
A Presentation for the Michael A. DeMayo Scholarship Program
+ 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.
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Drinking + Driving =
• 50 to 75
percent of
convicted
drunk
drivers
continue to
drive on a
suspended
license.
• Drunk driving causes
approximately one-third of
all traffic fatalities in the
United States.
• On average, someone in
the US is killed by a drunk
driver every 22 minutes.
• 60 percent of all teen deaths
in car accidents are alcoholrelated.
• Underage drinkers,
throughout their lifetimes,
will be seven times more
likely to be in an accident
involving alcohol.
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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.
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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
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It’s always a
choice.
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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.
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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 drunk
young drivers behind the wheel,
they could not only be endangering
themselves, but the
livelihood
of others.
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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.
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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.
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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.
VS
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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.
+
+
Thank you for your
consideration.
Yeonsoo Sara Lee
Myers Park High School
Charlotte, North Carolina