What I Think Should Be Done About DWI

DWI stands for driving while intoxicated or impaired. It means that you are drunk while driving a car. On average in America someone is killed every 40 minutes by a drunk driver. Drunk driving is extremely dangerous for the health of the person driving and for the other people on the road. Accidents involving drunk drivers kill around 13,000 people a year. It is a very costly traffic offence, for the people in the accident and for taxpayers.
"Alcohol-related crashes in the United States cost the public an estimated $114.3 billion in 2000, including $51.1 billion in monetary costs and an estimated $63.2 billion in quality of life losses. People other than the drinking driver paid $71.6 billion of the alcohol-related crash bill, which is 63 percent of the total cost of these crashes."*

Most of the public think that drinking while driving is a serious concern. A lot of people are in support of requiring drivers who have been convicted of drunk driving to use preventive measures like an ignition interlock device, which makes you blow into a tube to see how much alcohol is in your breathe. If it is too high it will not let you start the car.147

I think another good thing to do would be if someone is drinking at a bar and the bartender knows that that customer has had too much to drink, that he (the bartender) is required to call a cab for the person. The person should not be allowed to drive. The bartender could take the person's keys and make sure that he did not drive away. Then when the cab gets there he could make sure that the person got in the cab and give him his keys back. If the bartender could not do that then maybe the bars should hire someone to do that. It would save a lot of people heartache and loss. The bar may complain about having to hire someone else but in the long run it would pay off for the city.

Another thing that I think should be done is stiffer sentences for people who have been arrested for drunk driving. They got off too easy sometimes. I think for your first offence you should have to spend at least a 9 months in prison and pay a $2,000 fine. And it should get steeper from there. I think that if you have been convicted for drunk driving 3 times then you need to be in jail for at least 6 years. It may seem kind of harsh but it only takes driving drunk one time to endanger the life of someone else.

*(All statics by found on http://www.madd.org/Drunk-Driving/Drunk-Driving/Statistics.aspx. The website of MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.)

If All the Streets were Rivers

If all the streets were rivers, then there would be many more boats than cars. Cars would become obsolete. We would not have cars anymore. The car engineers would be boat engineers and they would design the boats like they do cars now. I imagine we would have luxury boats with every thing imaginable and we would also have old junker boats that parents got their kids. Instead of getting your drivers license you would get your boating license. You would hope for a new boat for your sixteenth birthday instead of a car. I think boats would be somewhat smaller than they are now because of the narrowness of the rivers. We would have compact boats and I guess we would have boats that are kind of like SUV's. We would still have the huge shipping boats because there would still be an ocean.

Parking lots would become docks and harbors. I am not sure if we would still have traffic lights or if we would have to invent something else. We would not be able to create as many new rivers because that would be a lot harder than just building a new street, but then again we would not have to spend so much time repairing rivers as we do streets. It would be very interesting if we had rivers instead of streets.

I wish I had one car because...

then I could drive! If I had a car then I could go get my driver's license. We have not gotten it yet because things keep coming up. I would be able to get a job so I could pay for the insurance, gas, and other things I need in order to have a car, but I have to have a car to get a job. If I had a car I would probably have to chauffeur my little brother around too but that would not be so bad. He really only needs to go to basketball practice and I do not think I would mind taking him places every once in a while. If I had a car I could go to Aunt Laura's without having to wait on parents to leave for work and then I could leave when I needed to instead of having to wait for them to come pick me up. That would be nice and my parents would be able to get more hours in. If I needed to I could go and babysit when Aunt Laura needed me to. If I had a car I could go to the library a lot more often, instead of just once a month. So it would be nice if I had a car ( and a driver's license.).

Drive Already!!!

Lately everyone has been after me to get my driver's license. It's kind of getting annoying. I know it would help everyone if I would get it, but I'm really in no rush. Because if I get one then I would have to pay for my own gas and help pay for insurance. And that would mean that I would have to get a full time job.

I don't want to get one right now because bball is next month and I'm trying to get caught up in school. So that maybe I can actually graduate on time. The main subject I'm behind on is math, which I hate. I don't understand it. The rules don't make any sense. One rule will apply for only this situation only if this other doesn't apply. It's extremely confusing!