Drinking and driving is probably the dumbest thing you can do, it’s not safe. You can hurt, kill innocent people, and it’s just not worth the risk of spending life in prison. When teenagers or anyone decides to mix alcohol and a motor vehicle, tragedy is often an intersection away.


In the editorial “Stopping the tragedies of teen drinking and driving,” drinking- and- driving problems don’t magically vanish with age, they actually get a lot worse and lead to injuries or death of innocent people. Eight percent of people seventeen and under who have committed alcohol- related driving offense’s will commit many more related one’s before they hit twenty one. About thirty percent of youths ages seventeen to twenty- are arrested for drunk driving from 1999 to 2009 were repeat offenders. State lawmakers need to treat these offenses more seriously, really crack down on it, and require mandatory alcohol treatment programs at the drivers’ expense and the immediate suspension of a minor’s license. Lawmakers should press for statewide database to track alcohol- related offenses by juveniles so judges can punish better based on their offenders prior histories.


Everybody has been hurt, lost people, or had some kind of relation with alcohol in their life. It’s difficult not to drink when you’re a teen, you have pain, depression, want to fit in with the popular, that was my problem. Started drinking, going to parties every weekend, made a lot of friends and lost old ones. Had fun all the time starting drinking and driving always drove drunk and never had any problems, - never wrecked or anything- so I thought I was professional. I kept on doing it for over a year, drinking at least five days a week drunk. There would be sober people in the car, but I was still driving. One night it finally caught up to me. I left my buddy’s house and was heading to buddy’s and came over a hill on Woodland lake road, and there was a road block. I pulled up, acted cool, and started a conversation, making the cop laugh. I went to get my wallet and I had forgotten it. The cop says that’s okay just pull over here for me and I’ll get some general information to make sure it’s not suspended or anything. I said yes sir and pulled over there. He made me get out and come back to his car and then he smelted the alcohol on me. I blew a 0.29 they made me do my field sobriety test and I passed them perfectly and my girlfriend started crying and screaming at the cops cause she thought I was going to jail and one of the cops grabbed her and I took off running and as soon as I got close to the cop that had her, I got slammed by another one and put in handcuffs. They called my parents and they had to come get me because I was a minor. That taught me a little lesson, but not nearly one good enough. I slowly learned from others being hurt and killed and my brother being killed from hitting a car head on at 130 mph on a motorcycle. All that changed me. I quit everything and quit hanging out with all of the alcoholics and drug heads, really taught me a lesson that I’m glad I learned early. I wish people around Brookwood and all the teenagers would listen and use common sense before it’s too late, just use your brain and think not your liver to drink.