(1 "Prevention -). Immature teenagers don't take into consideration the price they or their parents might have to pay for drinking and driving. The highest price to pay would be living with the guilt of taking a person's life. But if a teenager gets lucky and doesn't kill anyone they might get pulled over by police, which could result in expensive fines, court costs and an increase in the price of car insurance. Hingson reports that alcohol-related traffic crashes cost society $45 billion annually in hospital costs, rehabilitation expenses and lost productivity (11 "Prevention -). There is a bigger concern with teenagers drinking and driving rather than adults because teenagers drive more carelessly. Drivers under the age of twenty-one have less experience in driving and as a group, more often take risks in traffic, such as speeding or failing to wear seatbelts. With all this in mind, it is safe to say that for young drivers, drinking is like throwing gasoline on a fire. .
Not only is drunk driving a huge concern with immature underage drinkers but homicides, suicides and drowning are also concerns. Crittenton Hospital reports that a sixteen-year-old is more likely to die of an alcohol-related incident than any other cause (1). If underage drinking laws were better enforced by the law enforcement many teenage lives would be saved. A.A.S.T. Webnet Domain has reported that forty-two to sixty-six percent of all homicides, one or both parties involved were under the influence of alcohol (1). In the article, "Combating Underage Drinking-, it states that alcohol is factor in fifty to sixty-five percent of all suicides among youth (1). .
Alcohol and a college student is a very costly mix. Many young college students are not yet mature enough to manage school and drinking alcohol. Drinking alcohol in college is considered a "rite of passage-. Therefore, college students don't feel they've had the whole college experience unless they drink alcohol.
