Law Articles

Sporting Events & Drinking And Driving

National statistics that show how many individuals are actually driving drunk when they leave a sporting event should give many readers a thoughtful pause. These numbers are much higher than most may realize. At the University of Minnesota a scientific study was done to determine how many drunk drivers hit the road after they leave sporting events. The astonishing final figure was 1 in 12. This is quite significant especially if you take the time to consider the fact that there are generally tens of thousands of people attending these sponsored sports events. For instance if you have 24,000 fans in attendance at a small college sports event then statistics estimate that as many as 2000 will exit the venue in a drunken state. At a large football game that has an attendance of 60,000, there will be approximately 5,000 drunk drivers who leave the sports event. This is a startling and highly dangerous number of potential drunk drivers that will be taking to the roadways. In a big sports state like Alabama it's no wonder a Madison DUI attorney keeps busy.

All drunk drivers will not be caught but those who are will be subject to immediate arrest and detainment. In addition to a moving violation and possible loss of one's driver's license there are other criminal charges which can be levied.

The costs that are associated with any drunken driving conviction can be enormous. There are legal fees, fines, bail money, missed days at work, and a negative impact on insurance premiums. These financial costs can eventually be as much as $20,000, or more. If you lose your job because you are convicted of DUI then there could be more significant consequences. Honestly most people would be financially ruined if they had to face this type of scenario.

The cost to communities that drunk drivers create can sometimes be too high for a monetary value to be assessed. Property damage; damage to roads and highways; and additional costs for increased traffic enforcement are only a few of the reasons that communities must pay a high price just to cover many of the problems caused by drunk drivers. Of course there is also the human toll. Drunk drivers end up destroying lives....many lives-including the lives of the guilty drivers and the innocent strangers whose lives are lost.Next time you are even questioning the costs, have a conversation with a DUI attorney and find out more statistics; the numbers will blow your mind.

An easy means to curtail such potential problems is for the sports arenas to stop serving alcoholic drinks. It would become more difficult for ticket holders to get alcohol into the stadiums if these drinks were not readily available on the premises. This scenario will never happen. The reason is the high profits that sports venues make from alcohol sales. The high cost of alcoholic beverages at any sporting event contains an enormous profit mark-up and none of these venues would ever give serious consideration to the possibility of banning the sales of these beverages from their premises.

It should go without saying you should avoid drinking and driving when you attend a sporting event. This advice reflects the easy part. The hard part entails being mindful of the dangers other drivers present. You truly do need to be extra vigilant to avoid the problems such drivers present.