New Virginia Law Targets Teen Drinking and Driving

Although the Fairfax County Times did an admirable job in editorializing on Virginia's tough new teen drinking and driving law ("A law we can live with," June 24), it's important to ask why public policy like this is needed in the first place.

According to Virginia's Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services' most recent statewide Virginia Community Youth Survey, alcohol is the "most commonly used substance" by Virginia teens. Specifically, Virginia's own figures show 76 percent of high school seniors and 64 percent of 10th-graders reported using alcohol.

In addition, more than one-quarter (27.8 percent) of Virginia's 12th-graders reported consuming five or more drinks in a row within the reporting period's past two weeks - a behavior not viewed as a "great risk" by 45 percent of U.S. teens, according to this year's Partnership Attitude Tracking Study conducted by The Partnership at Drugfree.org and MetLife Foundation.

Further compounding measures, and according to data from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, is many of these underage drinkers also are getting behind the wheel. In 2010 and on average, a teen was injured in an alcohol-related traffic crash every 16 hours in Virginia.

Effective this month, teens convicted in Virginia of driving after consuming virtually any amount of alcohol will lose their driver's licenses for one year and be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

As one-third of teens killed in U.S. traffic crashes had been drinking, Virginia's new teen drinking and driving law is a most welcomed strengthening of Virginia's zero-tolerance position on this completely preventable crime.