Drunken Driving- Page 263

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Defensive driving requires that a driver concentrate on
the driving task. Anything that distracts from the 
driving task 

--

 such as concentrating on a cellular

telephone call, reading, or reaching for something on the
floor 

--

 makes proper defensive driving more difficult

and can even cause a collision, with resulting injury.
Ask a passenger to help do things like this, or pull 
off the road in a safe place to do them yourself. 
These simple defensive driving techniques could save
your life.

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:

D

Judgment

D

Muscular Coordination

D

Vision

D

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, about 16,000 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 21, 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 the leading 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:

D

The amount of alcohol consumed

D

The drinker’s body weight

D

The amount of food that is consumed before and
during drinking

D

The length of time it has taken the drinker to
consume the alcohol.