Alcohol is the most abused drug in the world. Accounting for the majority of all car accident-related fatalities, alcohol is a major part of destruction in our country. Because of this, all cars should have breathalyzer tests to lower how many deaths and how much destruction alcohol causes.

First of all, Alcohol kills on average 1 person every 40-50 minutes, that’s 6.5 times the amount of fatalities caused by all the illicit drugs combined. DUI is a major part of these fatalities and because of this, drunk driving is the most important alcohol related problem we should deal with. There is two ways to stop people from doing something. We can give them consequences to prevent them from thinking of doing it, but considering drunken people don’t have a fear of getting arrested for a serious offence, we have to go for option B, which is making it impossible or almost impossible. To do this, we need to make a law that requires all cars to be made with a built with breathalyzer tests after a certain grace period. In addition, anyone without a breathalyzer test on their car must buy one before the grace period ends. And this law will be checked every year, with a fine and/or jail time for an offender. With this, it will be very hard for an intoxicated person to drive.

Because of all the car recalls and the designs of cars with breathalyzer tests and other costs associated with this new law would seem pretty steep, however, drunk driving costs the public a whopping 114.3 billion dollars, along with 51.1 billion dollars in monetary costs and 63.2 billion dollars in quality of life losses. People other than the cause of the destruction paid 63% of these costs. This means that with the way it is today, an innocent person could get hurt by a drunk driver physically, financially, and sometimes mortally, as this causes around 100 deaths a day. How expensive do breathalyzer tests sound now, compared to the current cost of drunk driving, and the priceless lives lost? You might say that you don’t need it because it will only cost you money, but you don’t have to drive drunk to be affected by it, and will actually save you money, because the lowered costs will allow things that benefit our country and save you cold, hard, cash at health and auto insurance!

Now that you see that financially, we would save money; it’s time to look at the worst part of DUI. As I’ve said before, every 40-50 minutes someone is killed from drunk driving, which is around 25000 deaths a year. Many people know what it is like to lose someone. 25000 deaths/year divided by 50 states is 500 deaths in 1 state per year. Rhode Island has 39 cities. That’s about 10 deaths in each Rhode Island City according to this statistic. If you think drunk driving can’t affect you, think again. Imagine if your friend/relative got killed from an alcohol related accident, just because there was nothing stopping an intoxicated person from driving. This law has to be passed before more people get killed.

As you can see, Alcohol ruins society and kills people, along with damaging our wallet. We have to do something to stop this, and built-in breathalyzer tests will help to considerably reduce the deaths, costs, and destruction. There is (as of June 30, 2000) about half a trillion dollars in the U.S, countless cars, houses, parks, etc in the U.S, and only one of every person. Are people’s lives disposable enough to allow all these deaths to happen?