In my community drinking and driving has become a big issue. Many people drink and drive every weekend. People have to know that it is wrong, so why do people do it? There are many ways that accidents can be prevented from drinking and driving. We just need to think of ways that will stop people from drinking and driving and have an alternative for them to turn to.

Caroline county is a small town with nothing to do. People have to drive thirty minutes at least out of their way just to keep themselves entertained. One option that we can do to stop people from drinking and driving would be to build a movie theater, everyone loves the movies. The movie theater would be a place for families, kids and teenagers to go, even a place for couples to go on dates. This would stop people from going to parties more and from drinking and driving.

Another option could be a shopping outlet. It is something fun to do and everyone loves new clothes. The outlets could be open until eleven o’clock so then it would be too late for people to go out and drink. In the outlets there could be restaurants, nail places, clay bakers and an arcade so everything that a person needed would be right there in one spot.

If we had a bowling alley in our community than people could get a group of friends together and be able to go midnight bowling. This would keep people from drinking and going to parties later. They could make just a teens night at the bowling alley and just an adults night. That way teenagers parents couldn’t show up and spy on them or bother them. Bowling could be a fun place for boyfriend/ girlfriend bonding and it is also a place for some family fun.

When I went to my sister’s college she was explaining to me that when college students drink they have a van called safe ride. Whenever someone has been drinking even if they are underage they call safe ride to pick them up. It is a free ride to take someone from place to place when they have been drinking. This van picks up people all night. I thought that this was a really good idea to have so college students are not obligated to drink and drive. If we had a safe ride in our community for people to have access to even underage teenagers, then it would probably save a lot of lives.

Every Friday and Saturday night our community should offer activities for the kids to do. Whether it is a dance to go to, contests where they could win prizes or scavenger hunts. All of these activities should be free so the kids would actually go them and know that they don’t have to pay anything. At these activities they should have free snacks and a little prize every time someone went to one. If the kids know that they are getting free food than they are more likely to show up to one of these events.

During the summer my mom helps out with the drug and alcohol coalition. They always have a dodge ball tournament where people can get teams together even adults and they can win prizes and have free food. They always have kids and adults show up there and people always have a blast. If people just come out for even a little just to eat that’s better than them being out drinking.

Parks and recreation should have water sports for people to do in the summer. They could take people tubing, wakeboarding or just take people out in the water to swim. They could have fishing contests for males of all ages or swimming contests to see who can swim the fastest. Parks and recreation could do free bike rides through the trails for people who want exercise or even long runs. All of these activities are just fun and simple activities for people to do over than out drinking.

There are so many ways to get people to participate in activities but our county government isn’t coming up with ways to help people stop drinking and driving. They would be surprised to see how many people would participate in these functions. If we had things to do in our community than everybody wouldn’t be out drinking and driving all of the time. It would reduce deaths and accidents. Why drink and drive when it is dangerous and someone’s lives could be at risk.

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ESSAY REVIEW

Your first paragraph asks a question: "why do people do it?" Although you don't explicitly answer that question (and you really should), you do implicitly answer it in your essay. For the argument of your essay (with the possible exception of your paragraph on the "safe ride" program) assumes that the reason people drink and drive is that they have nothing else to do. If that assumption about why people drink an drive is correct, then all of your proposals, even if some of them are unrealistic, are reasonable in principle. If people only go to parties or bars because they can't go bowling or shopping, then building a bowling alley and a shopping complex might well have an impact on drunk driving. I suspect that is not why people go to parties or pubs, however. So I think the question that you ask in your first paragraph needs to be explicitly addressed. Why do people really do it? Well, people go to pubs and parties for all kinds of reasons, but mostly, I suspect, they choose to do that because it's fun. They choose to drink because they enjoy drinking, or because everyone else is drinking, or because they cannot stand the horrors of sober existence. And they drive drunk because they are drunk then and don't know what they are doing, or because they lost their designated driver, or because they are unaware that they are drunk, or because they are aware and don't care, or because it’s late and it’s cold and they figure they’ll drive carefully and be fine.

In large part, I'm just making plausible sounding stuff up here, but the point I'm trying to make is that drunk driving (in all likelihood) happens for a complicated set of reasons. It's what is called an overdetermined phenomenon. And in that case, opening up a shopping mall will likely be of limited benefit. So what else can one do? Well there are two basic strategies that are adopted generally to prevent drunk driving: (1) education (usually through advertisement) about the need to drink responsibly and have a designated driver and so on; and (2) deterrence or punishment or rehabilitation for DUI offenders. Your essay should probably consider these strategies along with the safe-ride program. Note that giving teenagers something else to do might also be a part of an overall program to address drunk driving, but giving them something else to do is really just one argument. You devote one paragraph to building a movie theatre, another to the mall idea, and another to building a bowling alley, and then finally another to the general idea that the "community should offer activities for the kids to do." That's all essentially one argument. You can make it your main argument if you want (and even explain its priority) and then devote a couple of paragraphs to it, but I don't think you need to go into the details of how the bowling alley would be run to maximise its attractiveness.