Educating Your Teen About the Dangers of Drunk Driving

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There are several reasons that teens are considered a high-risk group when it comes to driving. First
and foremost, they are inexperienced, which means they may not have the knowledge and skills needed
to make appropriate and well-timed decisions on the road. Further, they often have a delusion of
invincibility that can lead them to act in ways that are far from safe or prudent. And finally, they are
generally susceptible to peer pressure to the point that they are willing to ignore their safety training and
make poor decisions while operating a vehicle in order to impress their friends. As if all of this wasn’t
frightening enough for parents, many teens also begin experimenting with alcohol during their adolescent
years. So it behooves you to educate your teen driver about the dangers of getting behind the wheel after
drinking if you want to do everything in your power to ensure his safety.

But where should you start? While you can certainly assault your teen with a slew of statistics about the
number of teens involved in accidents each year, how many of those are fatal, and how many cited the
involvement of alcohol (check the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, website
for fact sheets), you might be better off taking a more personal approach rather than a clinical one. Sit
your teen down to discuss the possibility of drinking and driving and tell him why you don’t want him to.
If you’ve ever had a drinking and driving incident yourself, explain what led to your poor decision and
why you will never do it again. Talk about how friends and family would feel, how YOU would feel, if your
teen was injured or even killed due to drinking and driving. As a parent your best ammunition comes
not from your superior knowledge and experience, but from your personal connection to your child. So
approaching him on an emotional level may be the key to eliciting some thought on the subject rather
than empty promises meant to end the lecture.

If you feel that your tactics aren’t working, you may have to try more extreme measures. Consider taking
the approach that your teen could not only hurt himself, but also other people in the vehicle (his friends)
as well as strangers on the road (possibly families with children). Pose the question of what would happen
if he caused an accident in which he was the only survivor. Not only would he be faced with impending
legal action (and probably jail time), but he would have to live with the guilt of his actions for the rest of
his life. And if that doesn’t work, consider showing him the YouTube PSAs for drinking and driving (or
even texting while driving – those ones are far more graphic).

Although you may be hesitant to subject your teen to this sort of graphic violence, consider that the
alternative may involve major legal expenses (it is equally costly to hire a Los Angeles DUI attorney, a
criminal lawyer in New York, or an Orlando lawyer that specializes in teen drunk driving cases), jail time,
and even injury or death. When viewed in that light, any form of intervention seems tame.