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Drinking? When is Enough, Enough?

By Peter Cutforth

August 16, 2012

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So everyone knows that drinking and driving is dangerous, but still we find numerous cases of people causing crashes because they are drinking. So why are people still drinking and driving as if they are oblivious to its effects? All alcohol you consume is absorbed into your blood stream. So here are a few facts to keep in mind when drinking.
 

Drinking on an empty stomach increases your blood alcohol concentration more quickly than when you have eaten.
 

The alcohol you consume is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream from the stomach lining, small intestine and large intestine which is why you feel its effects so quickly, although the rate of absorption does vary from person to person. Factors that affect the absorption rate are the amount of food in your stomach and whether the food is protein or fat.  So drinking on an empty stomach causes your blood alcohol level to rise more rapidly and yu begin to feel the effects more quickly.
 

Drinking and Driving Can be Lethal
 

Why s drinking and driving so dangerous? Well driving a complex task, it requires the driver to make the correct decisions and for this complete concentration is necessary. Alcohol lowers your concentration levels and makes these complex tasks more difficult to coordinate.  In fact there is a wealth of information and statistics to show that driving under the influence of alcohol dramatically increases a person’s chance of crashing.
 

There is no absolute safe level of alcohol for drivers
 

The ideal is not to drink at all, but if you have to drink and drive what levels are acceptable?   Australia has very strict drink driving laws and according to these laws the legal limit is 0.05 blood alcohol concentration.  So if you are stopped by police and your blood alcohol levels are higher than this, you will be in trouble. Police have a right to stop you and conduct a breath test at any time.
 

Exceeding the Legal Limit Doubles Your chance of Crashing
 

According to research driving with a blood alcohol concentration level higher than the legal limit doubles your risk of crashing. Statistics also show that alcohol, more than any other element causes the most crashes on our roads. Authorities have even noted that some Australian states can account 1 in 3 accidents to drink driving.
 

How drinking affects your driving:
 

  1. Drinking dramatically reduces your response time which especially in an emergency situation can be disastrous.  For example if a pedestrian were to appear in front of your vehicle unexpectedly you would most likely hit them because your reflexes would be too slow to react appropriately to avoid them.
  2. Drinking also dulls your thinking so it is difficult to multitask, which makes driving almost impossible.
  3. Alcohol, especially when really over intoxicated short term side effects such as blackouts and blurred vision can occur. Any driver knows a split second is all it takes for a crash to occur.  

 

So as a driver it is important to understand the concept of Blood Alcohol Concentration.
 

Blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is the measure used to describe the amount of alcohol in the blood system. The BAC is expressed as grams of alcohol per 100ml of blood. According to Australian law drivers legal limit of 0.05 BAC translates as 0.05gm alcohol per 100ml of blood. This limit applies to passenger car drivers. For other categories it is much lower at 0 BAC or 0.02 BAC which applies to learner drivers, truck, taxi and bus drivers.
 

Translating into drinks, this 0.05 BAC limits means men should drink no more than 2 standard drinks and females no more than one.
 

Alcohol is a drug and dramatically slows your body’s responses both mentally and physically
 

In conclusion we can all agree that drinking over the legal limit or excessively, affects driver’s judgement, thinking, reaction time and reflexes making driving a very bad idea.
 

Alcohol stays in your body a long time and in fact it takes your body much longer to get rid of the alcohol than it does to absorb it. Therefore if you indulge in a heavy night of drinking and then drive the next morning chances are alcohol will still be present in your body and affect your driving ability.  
 

The main factors that influence your BAC (blood alcohol concentration) are your body size, age, level of fitness, liver health, gender, medication and food eaten so the best way to avoid causing a crash or getting into trouble with the law is to avoid drinking and driving completely.
 

Posted by Peter Cutforth
 


 

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