Featured image: (Pacer Graphic / Adrianna’ Carter)

Over 16,000 car crashes happen every day, and approximately 34 people die everyday from drinking and driving.

Next to speeding, drinking and driving is one of the most common ways to die while driving along with texting and driving. Approximately nine people die everyday from texting and driving, which isn’t as high as drinking, but it is still an awful way for someone to die.

Drinking and driving is incredibly selfish and is basically the same thing as texting and driving. Not only are you putting your life at risk, but you are also putting someone else’s life at risk. If you kill someone from drinking/texting and driving, you will hold that guilt for the rest of your life, and that guilt will eat you alive.

The survivor who caused the crash can develop PTSD and, although therapy can help, denial can prolong the pain the survivor is feeling. It would not be odd for someone to feel denial after accidentally hitting someone while drunk and killing them. Most people who kill someone while drinking and driving, do not expect to.

In Tennessee, if you are caught texting and driving, you receive a class C misdemeanor. If it is your first offense, you pay $50 or you have to attend driving school. On the other hand, if you are caught drinking and driving for the first time, you will receive mandatory jail time with a minimum of 48 hours. If your blood alcohol check comes back to 0.15 or higher, you will receive a minimum of 7 days in jail.

Although there are not as many deaths for texting and driving as there are for drinking and driving, more and more people are texting and driving each day and it might eventually result in more deaths.

I know that texting and driving will not stop, even if it is put under the same category as drinking and driving. I know people do not care about what the result will be if they are caught, and I know they do not consider other people when doing it, so that is why I believe that the laws for texting and driving should be stricter. People should face jail time, and while they are behind bars maybe they can think about what could have happened if they hit and killed someone.

If you want to drink and have fun make sure you have a ride home. If you need to answer a text, pull off to the side of the road. Don’t put someone’s life at risk because it.