Teen drinking and driving

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Drinking and Driving

 

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Teens are getting better about driving sober, but teen drinking and driving is still a deadly risk on the roads. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed national data.

CDC researcher Ruth Shults:

“The rates of drinking and driving among high school students 16 years and older have been cut in half in the past 20 years. Even with that large reduction, about 1 in 10 high school students still drinks and drives each month.”

That works out to about a million high school students drinking and driving each year.

Shults says parents should keep in mind that teens often get the alcohol at home or at the home of a friend, and enforce a no-drinking-and-driving rule.