7A

Drunk Driving Prevention

• Opportunity 
• Thousands of Americans die every year due to drunk driving accidents 
• The Who: Americans who operate vehicles
• The What: They get into car accidents due to intoxicated drivers
• The Why: Many drunk drivers are not aware of their level of intoxication or simply do not believe anything harmful will happen to them
• Hypothesis: How do we prevent Americans from driving while under the influence?
  
• Testing the who: 
• Every time you get behind the wheel, you are not only risking your life but your passengers lives as well as the lives of every civilian on the road. Therefore, the scope of this problem is not only limited to drivers. Other people involved in this opportunity include passengers of drivers, pedestrians, and every person who owns property because a drunk driver could potentially crash into someone's tree, house, or store.
• Testing the what: 
• In 2016, over 10,000 Americans were not only harmed but killed in car crashes resulting from intoxicated drivers. This accounts for approximately 28% of fatal car accidents in America. (cdc.gov) Even though driving accidents can still occur under normal circumstances, intoxicated driving steeply increases the amount of deaths on the road.
• Testing the why: 
• Americans sometimes like to believe that they are invincible and do not want to seem weak or ask for help. Perhaps that is why so many drivers choose to drunk while under the influence of alcohol. Although they may not realize they are drunk, if a person's blood alcohol content is over the legal limit, they should not be able to operate intense machinery like a car. Moreover, Americans can be stubborn and insist that they are such great drivers that them being under the influence won't affect their safety or those around them.
• Interview #1: 
• The first person I interviewed was a mother because I had a general idea of what she would say. As I predicted, she told me that she hates when people drunk drive and that she has two sons that are new drivers. She mentioned that she gets scared every time her kids are out driving late on a Friday or Saturday night because she worries a drunk driver will hit them. I also asked her if she knew any solutions to this problem and she told me that she believes, no matter what actions are taken, drunk driving will always be on the rise, unfortunately.
• Interview #2:
• I interviewed a young professional woman who had been a victim of a hit and run by a drunk driver. She told me that she would not have been angry had it been a normal car accident but she was deeply disturbed by the fact that the man operating the car was intoxicated and that he fled the scene of the crime after without asking her if she needed any assistance. Luckily for her, the police found the man who hit her and arrested him. She also claimed that drunk driving is a huge issue and she recommended that more check points be installed to breathalyze drivers who seem to be under the influence of alcohol.
• Interview #3:
• For this interview, I decided to focus on someone who was on the other end of the accident, an actual drunk driver. When I asked him why he decides to get behind the wheel while intoxicated, he answered that he does not think he is impaired or in danger of an accident. He has never been in a car accident yet and claims he will continue to drive while intoxicated even though he knows it is not ideal. I asked him if he would ever stop doing this and he answered that only if he had a life changing epiphany or got into a real car accident while he was drunk driving.
• Interview #4:
• I interviewed one of my friends who had a friend in a coma after she was hit by a drunk driver. She remembers getting a text from her other friend explaining what had happened and rushing to the hospital to be by her friend's side. Waiting for her friend to wake up from the coma was the worst week of her life. The woman I interviewed admitted to driving while intoxicated prior to this event but after this happened to her friend, she swore she would never drive under the influence again.
• Interview #5: 
• My last interview was with an elderly man who does not drive anymore due to his poor eyesight. However, he recalls that, back in his day, he did not see as many drunk driving car accidents as there are today. He believes that this is because millennials feel unstoppable and are not taking into account how serious operating a vehicle intoxicated is. He thinks that there needs to be a way for a car to stop working if the driver is intoxicated but he does not know how the logistics behind such an invention would work.
• What I learned in these interviews:
• I learned that many people of all walks of life agree on the seriousness of this issue but many of them are unsure of how to prevent this problem from continuing to occur. If there was a simple fix to this problem, it would have been implemented by now so it is up to young entrepreneurs like myself to see this opportunity and attempt to solve the complicated issue.
• On the other hand, I found out that there are still some people that do not realize the gravity and seriousness of drunk driving. This accredits my earlier points in the blog mentioning why certain people drive while intoxicated. A way to solve this problem is to educate all drivers on the effects of alcohol and the dangers behind getting the wheel when drunk.
• I believe that the most effective way to prevent this is to install ignition locks that breathalyze drivers before they enter their cars to ensure that they are not legally drunk. If the driver's blood alcohol content is above the legal limit, then the car should shut down and prevent this driver from operating the vehicle. If the driver is not intoxicated, he will be permitted to drive. While this would be costly to implement and difficult to ensure that all drivers add this new feature to their cars, it would save many lives in the long run.