Soc Excerpt #1: Drinking and Driving

Overall, I think of myself as a ‘good girl’. Yeah, I’ve done some deviant things, all of which were undeniably stupid of me. I was underage and didn’t understand the basic concept of mixing drinks OR moderation (“Why would I add juice to my schnapps? I don’t need a glass this way…”) No matter how close that got me to alcohol poisoning, I always understood that booze and car keys were the most lethal combination I could come up with. I’ve never understood or tolerated drunk driving, and its clear why.

Of all the forms of risky behavior for youths, I would venture to say that drinking and driving is possibly the worst. There are many, many horrors or drinking and driving, one of which is the fact that the intoxicated driver will likely injure or kill a completely innocent motorist, cyclist, or pedestrian in their blind stupor. And the predominant culprit appears to be young men. “Young men, of all drivers, have the highest risk automobile accidents” (Tepperman 179). Combine that statistic with this one: “60% of drivers between the age of 15 and 19 drank before being involved in an accident” (Tepperman 179). Over half of the individuals surveyed were intoxicated as they got into an accident, and a higher number of accidents involve men. This is disgusting and unacceptable. “Young, single men who drink and then drive are more likely to drink than older, married men” (Tepperman 179). Hmmmm. Now why might that be? I’m not even going to go there.

The sole fact that young people, not just men, are involving themselves with drinking and driving has two major law-violating implications. Not only are they drinking and driving, but they are drinking underage as well. This constitutes what is known as a ‘status offence’. A status offense is when a youth breaks a law that they had no part in creating, and was imposed upon them by older, wiser law-makers. One might speculate that the act of underage drinking is a rebellion to these rules, and that a status offence might even earn a place of honor among other underage individuals. But when that offence begins to be lethal not only to the offender but to innocent individuals as well, a zero-tolerance policy must be followed. This is typically the outcome, as drinking and driving alone has very high legal implications and consequences.

There are many schools of thought surrounding why it is that underage kids engage in such risky behavior. The functionalist theory suggests that “…crime provides a positive function because it stimulates social cohesion and promotes the development of more complex social arrangements…”(Tepperman 195). The symbolic approach deals principally with ‘labeling’. Even the conflict theory advocates that the amount of delinquent behavior correlates with the number of rules being set against the youth.

This is all well and good, and each school of thought has valid and well-supported stances. I, however, have adopted my own zero tolerance policy for drinking and driving, and no amount of theories are going to change my mind, underage or not.

-K