Drunken Driving
Death and injury associated with drinking and driving
is
a
national tragedy. It’s the number one contributor to the
highway death toll, claiming thousands
of
victims
every year.
Alcohol affects
four
things that anyone needs
to
drive
a vehicle:
Judgment
0
Muscular Coordination
Vision
0
Attentiveness.
Police records show that almost half
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, some
17,000
annual motor
vehicle-related deaths have been associated
with
the use
of
alcohol, with more than 300,000 people injured.
Many adults
--
by
some estimates, nearly half the adult
population
--
choose never
to
drink alcohol, so they
never drive after drinking. For persons under
2
I
,
it’s
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 solve this highway safety problem
is
for people never
to
drink alcohol and then drive.
But
what
if
people do?
How
much
is
“too much”
if
the
driver plans
to
drive? It’s
a
lot less than many might
think. Although
it
depends on each person and situation,
here is some general information
on
the
problem.
The
Blood Alcohol Concentration
(BAC)
of
someone
who
is drinking depends upon four things:
The amount of alcohol consumed
e
The drinker‘s body weight
0
The amount
of
food that is consumed before and
during drinking
The length
of
time
it
has taken the drinker to
consume the alcohol.
According to the American Medical Association,
a
180-lb. (82 kg) person who drinks three 12-ounce
(355
ml)
bottles of beer
in
an hour
will
end up
with
a
BAC of about 0.06 percent. The person would reach the
same BAC
by
drinking three 4-ounce
(
120
ml)
glasses
of wine or three mixed drinks
if‘
each had
1
-
1/2
ounces
(45
ml)
of
a
liquor like whiskey, gin
or
vodka.
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