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Drunk Driving
{CAUTION:
Drinking and then driving is very dangerous.
Your reflexes, perceptions, attentiveness,
and judgment can be affected by even a
small amount of alcohol. You can have a
serious — or even fatal — collision if you
drive after drinking. Do not drink and drive
or ride with a driver who has been drinking.
Ride home in a cab; or if you are with a
group, designate a driver who will not drink.
Death and injury associated with drinking and driving
is a global tragedy.
Alcohol affects four things that anyone needs to
drive a vehicle: judgment, muscular coordination,
vision, and attentiveness.
Police records show that almost 40 percent of all
motor vehicle-related deaths involve alcohol. In most
cases, these deaths are the result of someone who
was drinking and driving. In recent years, more
than 17,000 annual motor vehicle-related deaths
have been associated with the use of alcohol, with
about 250,000 people injured.
For persons under 21, it is against the law in every
U.S. state to drink alcohol. There are good medical,
psychological, and developmental reasons for
these laws.
The obvious way to eliminate the leading highway
safety problem is for people never to drink alcohol
and then drive.
Medical research shows that alcohol in a person’s
system can make crash injuries worse, especially
injuries to the brain, spinal cord, or heart. This means
that when anyone who has been drinking — driver
or passenger — is in a crash, that person’s chance of
being killed or permanently disabled is higher than if
the person had not been drinking.
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