Teens and Impaired Driving

Teens and Impaired Driving
Statistics consistently show that even though it is illegal for teens to drink alcohol, they account for a large number of drunk-driving accidents. The National Highway Transportation Services Administration (NHTSA) released a 2009 report estimating 11,773 people died in car crashes that were attributable to drunk driving in 2008, accounting for more than 31 percent of all traffic fatalities in that year. An earlier NHTSA report found that in 2008 "2 percent of the fifteen- to twenty-year-old drivers involved in property-damage-only crashes had been drinking, 4 percent of those involved in crashes resulting in injury had been drinking, and 22 percent of those involved in fatal crashes had been drinking." The study also points out that teenage drivers are less likely to use seatbelts if they have been drinking and "63 percent of the young drivers of passenger vehicles involved in fatal crashes who had been drinking were unrestrained," and, of those who had been drinking before they were killed in crashes, "73 percent were unrestrained."
http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Reference&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=GALE%7C00000000LVW8&documentId=GALE%7CPC3021900174&mode=view