Now that we’re on the countdown to winter, Christmas, and work parties it’s all too tempting to think about having a drink after work and then drive home. You’ve driven to work, you need to get home, and hey you’ve only had one drink or thereabouts, haven’t you? Well, you may think you’re fine to drive, but what if you had an accident and what if, you were actually stopped and breathalysed. How much do you love your ability to drive and the freedom it gives you. Worse still, could you live with yourself if you were responsible for a car accident?
Just the one
Then there’s the office business lunch. You’ve got to smooth the way with a couple of drinks, after all, nobody wants to be seen to be a party pooper. But it all adds up and let’s face it, everyone is different. We all know people who’ve gotten away with driving home after a few drinks. We may even know a few people who’ve even been breathalysed and have passed. How we metabolise food and alcohol varies from person to person and there’s no one size fits all for how much anyone can drink compared with someone else.
Affecting Abilities
Alcohol consumption adversely affects your ability to see or locate moving lights correctly and your ability to judge distance. So your ability to judge stopping distances is going to be diminished if you have small amounts of alcohol in your system. It’s a shocking statistic that your chances of having an accident increase by 5 times if you have even the legal minimum amount of alcohol in your system.
When you’ve consumed alcohol, you are more likely to be in a state of euphoria and as such this greatly impairs your perception of your ability to drive in the first place. If you’re male and live in a rural area you’re 90% more likely to have a fatal car accident as 90% of RTA fatalities sadly occur in rural areas.
Drink Driving Facts
The drink driving facts are a sobering read if you’re thinking of having a night out to enjoy yourself. It really pays to nominate a designated driver so that you and your friends or colleagues can kick back and really relax safe in the knowledge that you’ll get home safe and won’t have to worry about what to do with your car. You’ll also not be tempted to drive home if you’ve left your car at home on a night out which can be tempting if you’ve not organised a lift home. It’s so easy to be over the drink driving limit you can’t take the risk of driving when you’re planning on having a night out. So, when we ask that question again, after reading those statistics, could you live with the consequences of drink driving now that you know the real risks? Doesn’t it make you think twice? Never drink and drive to make sure you and your loved ones always arrive home alive.
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Photo Credit: Zeny Rosalina Jakub Dziubak
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