As AHS prom is rolling around the corner (on May 25, to be exact), students will begin to see the results of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)’s campaign to raise awareness for the danger surrounding drunk driving on prom.

Thus, our theme for this week is underage drinking while driving.

It might sound trite at this point, but drunk driving on prom night is a real, and dangerous problem. Here are some statistics from Edgar & Snyder, LLC., a law firm that deals with drunk driving cases:

About 5,000 people under the age of 21 die each year as a result of underage drinking, 1,900 of those deaths are from auto accidents.

About one in three high school students has been a passenger in a car driven by someone who had consumed alcohol.

Alcohol is involved in 31% of teenage car accident fatalities.

There is a much better chance that an individual will drink and drive if they had their first drink prior to age 19.

The average blood-alcohol level of intoxicated underage car accident victims was 0.40 percent, five times the legal limit for driving.

Compared to every other age group, young people age 15-20 years old are more often involved in alcohol-related car accidents. Age 21 is the peak for fatal crashes.

(Statistics from http://www.edgarsnyder.com/drunk-driving/underage-drinking/underage-statistics.html)