Homework Question on Drunken Driving
- Please prepare your response using Times Roman 12 point font, 1” margins, and APA format (using a title page, double space text, use in-text parenthetical citations and a reference page). Please bring a hard copy with you to the next class meeting.
- Practice Policy Question:
- As we all know, the development and implementation of public policy impacts every aspect of public administration. Consider a scenario where your city has recently experienced an increase in drunk driving accidents.
- Explore the concept of federalism (discussing which levels of governments are responsible for various societal problems), the separation of powers (discussing how laws are made and implemented), and the role of interest groups in setting the policy agenda.
- Describe a variety of public policy theories that may guide the creation of the policy development (consider theories such as Elite Theory, Group Theory, etc). Explain how you would analyze the problem, and review a variety of policy instruments that could be used to impact the problem (such as authority tools, incentives, etc).
- Describe the types of assessments tools available to evaluate the policy (such as effectiveness, liberty and freedom, administrative feasibility, etc.), and how the implementation process and budgets may impact specific departments.
Homework Answer on Drunken Driving
Introduction
Drink driving is a major problem in the United States of America. A recent survey revealed that more than 62% of adult Americans consume alcohol. However, 74% of those involved have confessed to driving on more than one occasion each year. Drink driving therefore significantly contributes to road accidents. Drink driving causes up to 32% of all road fatalities and 12% of the severe injuries that occur on our roads.
In addition to loss of lives and injuries, drink driving is also responsible for emotion related trauma together with the social cost to the affected individuals. To the American government, the cost of every fatality crash is about $2.8 million, while that of hospitalization is estimated at $287,000. Therefore, there is an urgent need to formulate a comprehensive policy that would reverse this alarming and costly trend (Duncan, 2011).
In the United States of America, the organs of the government that handle the policy implementation of the alcohol consumption and driving are three. The three organs work together and include the executive, judiciary and the legislature. All of the three have designated roles as far as the implementation of the policy is concerned. It is important to note that even though the legislature is subdivided into two, both handle the law formulations including that concerning alcohol drinking and driving.