Druken Driving Embrasses Death!!!

Driving is not a child’s play. It has got something to do with controlling a machine. And to steer a wonder machine mounted on wheels one requires great skill. It requires judgement. It involves coordinated assessment of momentum, velocity, acceleration distance, direction, time, intrusions and obstructions. Driving demands close attention, concentration, proper vision, fitness, road sense, focus and confidence. One needs to master it for safe driving. In short driving is an art.

The task of a driver on the road is not easy all the time. He or she has to overtake the slow moving vehicles, allow for vehicles moving faster to pass, move by the side of vehicles in the adjacent lanes and also integrate smoothly with heterogeneous traffic. Having presence of mind is very important and sometime a key decision will need to be made in a split second, for averting an accident. And those are the significant attributes expected of a driver.

Now with a drunken driver all such manoeuvres are handled possibly with alcohol in his veins. A driver who is drunk cannot perform these tasks as expected and is a potential danger to the lives of other road users.

It does not seem that people want to drink and drive; as much as people would love to drink and dance. It is just that people have a need to drive after consuming drinks. After a hard day’s work, after a party, after a dance, after a picnic, after a dinner, after a tragedy, after a celebration there is always the need to drive back to the hotel.

Alcohol affects the Central Nervous System of a person. Even at BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration) of 0.05 per cent the sense of judgement is impaired and the ability to control steering is affected. It is a truth that abuse of alcohol results in increased incidence of traumatic vehicular injuries and deaths. Driver’s disregard for the law of physics is all the more evident.

Drunken drivers do not have the alertness in perceiving the dangers that may lie ahead on the road and may not be able to react quickly and appropriately. Their vision would be suspect. In normal circumstances most drivers can have a view spanning 240 degrees without really turning the head. When drunk this vision span can be impaired.

There could be serious errors in judgment related to perceiving distance between two moving vehicles, their speeds and their relative position in space. There could be difficulty in differentiating the signal lights and the colours and the ability to pick obstructions on the road including potholes and strayed objects. And it would be extremely difficult to avoid the glare from the lights of vehicles moving in opposite direction and that is a perfect recipe to get involved in a collision. All this will mean disaster.

Drinking and driving is one of the main causes of road crashes worldwide. It is an important factor influencing both the risk of a road crash as well as the severity of the resulting injuries. Drivers who have been drinking have a much higher risk of involvement in crashes than those with no alcohol in their blood, and this risk increases rapidly with increasing presence of alcohol in the blood

In some low- and middle-income countries up to 70% of fatally injured drivers have excess alcohol in their blood. An alcohol-impaired driver has 17 times the risk of being involved in a fatal crash than an unimpaired driver. Also impaired pedestrians are a danger to themselves and other road users.