Get your lips off the bottle or your hands off the wheel

Recently, due to a string of alcohol- related driving accidents that ended the lives of several high students, legislation has been proposed in Illinois to combat the problem of underage drunk driving. It states that it would be a felony for parents to knowingly allow underage drinking in their homes; and if one of those students is involved in a vehicle accident afterwards, they are held legally accountable. OK. First we’ll go over the benefit of this legislation. It’ll force parents to willingly teach their kids the evils of using certain substances. If that happens, that’s great. The bill’s purpose has been met. It will also force society to look in on itself to find out what exactly it is doing wrong in educating and protecting the youth. If parents and society were truly educating and protecting the youth, there wouldn’t be as much of a problem with drunken teens driving and getting into potentially fatal accidents. Now, it’s time to move onto the bad. Sure, it is good to make the parents responsible for their own actions. It’s incredibly stupid if they knowingly allow underage drinking, and it isn’t for religious purposes, and then allows the kid to get behind the wheel. It is an incredible lapse of judgment for anyone who thinks that it is okay to allow such a thing to happen. However, there are drawbacks to this legislation. What if the police assume that the parent knowingly allowed the underage drinking that lead to either death or at least property damage, but the parent really knew nothing about it? The parent would be guilty through association of the place where the students were drinking but also just through proximity. The parents could be charged with being negligent, but beyond that there is little, if anything, that could be done to further punish the parent. So, what’s the problem with parenting? Well, there are quite a few people who prove they should not have had kids. Parents exhibit this through purposely neglecting, beating or molesting their children. Sure, some parents might allow exposure to alcohol to their children. As long as they make sure car keys aren’t accessible, there are a few problems. The benefit of allowing children to have at least some exposure to alcohol as a child is that when they hit the ripe age of 21, they won’t overdo it. It isn’t rocket science. If high school students that are able to drive, have a party where there might be drinking, just take their keys and give them back once they have sobered up. It’s that simple. It doesn’t take a new law for people to use their basic thought processes to make the best decision.