Some Facts About Drinking And Driving
Drinking and driving is an equal opportunity killer. It’s not limited to certain socio-economic classes, cultural and ethnic groups or gender. Drinking and driving AND driving and drinking crosses all boundaries.
Every day on the roads people are dying or being injured nearly every thirty minutes due to a preventable crime: drunk driving.
Maybe some impaired individual who mistakenly believed he was not as intoxicated as he really was picked up his keys. An ego-driven individual, perhaps, who refuses help and decides to take his own life and the lives of others into his hands when he chooses to drink and then get behind the wheel. He is drinking and driving by choice.
The same goes for the driver who starts the engine with the six-pack of beer on the seat next to him, who cracks the cool one the moment the wheels start turning; driving while drinking.
Like variations on a theme – these scenarios repeat themselves on our city streets, back roads and highways every day.
Some facts about drinking and driving and alcohol:
- The average person metabolizes alcohol at the rate of about one drink per hour.
- Only time will sober a person up (and not very quickly). Drinking strong coffee, exercising or taking a cold shower will not help. ( Michigan State University , 2002)
- The speed of alcohol absorption affects the rate at which one becomes drunk.
- Unlike foods, alcohol does not have to be slowly digested. As a person drinks faster than the alcohol can be eliminated, the drug accumulates in the body, resulting in higher and higher levels of alcohol in the blood. (Narcotic Education Foundation of America , 2002)
- A standard drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 72- proof distilled spirits, all of which contain the same amount of alcohol — about .54 ounces. (NHTSA, 2002)
All these facts, figures and advice regarding drinking and driving should sober us up and take notice of a continued societal problem and responsibility.
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