Tag Archive: drunk driving

Tips for Safe Summer Driving: Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving

June 21, 2016

As we near the Fourth of July holiday period, people are starting to make plans for their holiday celebration but unfortunately, many forget to plan for their alcohol consumption. Too many Americans feel that if they’ve only had a little to drink, they’re still capable of driving safely. They tend to forget or ignore the fact that buzzed driving is impaired driving.

In 2014, over the 4th of July holiday (6 p.m. July 3rd to 5:59 a.m. July 7th), 164 people were killed in crashes involving at least one driver or motorcycle operator with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher. Those preventable deaths make up 41% of the 397 people killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes over the 4th of July period.

Much of the tragedy from drunk driving can be prevented with a few simple precautions before going out to celebrate:

Plan a safe way home before the festivities begin.
Before drinking, please designate a sober driver and give that person your keys.
If you’re impaired, use a taxi, call a sober friend or family member, or use public transportation so you’re sure to get home safely.
Use your community’s Sober Rides program.
If you happen to see a drunk driver on the road, don’t hesitate to contact your local law enforcement.
Parents of teen drivers should make sure that teens don’t have access to alcohol and that any teen gatherings are alcohol free.

If you know someone who is about to drive or ride while impaired, take their keys and help them make other arrangements to get to where they are going safely.

Driving impaired is simply not worth the risk, no matter the level of impairment. Alcohol not only affects each person differently, it can affect the same person differently. The effects change based on your food consumption, chemical interactions with other medications and general health. Fatigue, after a long day in the hot sun, can also impact the effects of alcohol.

The consequences of driving impaired are serious and real. Not only do you risk killing yourself or someone else, but the trauma and financial costs of a crash or an arrest for driving while impaired can be significant. Violators often face jail time, the loss of their driver’s license, higher insurance rates, and dozens of other unanticipated expenses.

Don’t let this Fourth of July blow up in your face. Remember, Buzzed Driving Is Impaired Driving. Designate your sober driver before the parties begin.

For more information, please visit http://www.stopimpaireddriving.com/

Drunk/Drugged Driving: Good News And Bad News

February 9, 2015

There’s good news and bad news from a study released recently by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). The good news is that drunk driving is down significantly but drugged driving is on the rise.

The National Roadside Survey, a survey conducted five times over the last 40 years, shows that drunk driving is down significantly since the last survey in 2007. The National Roadside Survey is a voluntary roadside survey conducted at points throughout the nation. Drivers are notified by signs leading to the survey site that the survey is completely voluntary and the results will remain anonymous.

According to the NHTSA survey, approximately eight percent of drivers during weekend night time hours were found to have alcohol in their system. Just over one percent of the drivers blew a .08 on the breathalyzer, the level at which drivers are deemed legally drunk in all 50 states. The number of drunk drivers in the survey was down by 30 percent since the last survey conducted in 2007 and 80 percent since the first survey conducted in 1973.

That good news was tempered by the fact that the number of drivers with drugs in their system that could affect their driving increased by almost 23 percent. The number of drivers with marijuana in their system increased by 50 percent.

The survey found that more than 15 percent of drivers in the survey tested positive for illegal drugs, a 25 percent increase over the previous survey. However, drugs that can affect driving aren’t just illegal drugs. Many drivers fail to realize that a number of prescription and over-the-counter medications can affect a person’s ability to drive safely. Overall, about 20 percent of drivers tested positive for some type of drug that could affect their driving abilities, up from 16.3 percent in 2007.

NHTSA credited anti-drunk driving campaigns with the lower rate of drunk driving. It seems that new campaigns are in order to reduce the number of drugged drivers on the road.

DUI Limit Lowered By Scotland and Lithuania

January 23, 2015

The DUI limit has been lowered in Scotland and Lithuania in conformance with the DUI laws in most of the rest of western Europe. Scotland lowered its DUI limit from .08 down to .05. Lithuania, which already had a general DUI limit of .04, lowered its DUI limit down to .02 for novice and commercial drivers.

A lot of Americans view Europe as having a lax attitude toward alcohol and that may be the case in certain countries but when it comes to drinking and driving, Europe has a low tolerance level. In fact, some of the old Eastern Bloc nations, including Russia, have a DUI limit of .00 or .01.

Most of the western European nations have long since adopted a DUI limit of .05. When Switzerland lowered its DUI limits from .08 to .05 in 2005, they experienced a 44% drop in alcohol related highway deaths. England and Wales remain the only western European nations with a DUI limit of .08 and their governments are being pressured to lower their DUI limits to at least .05.

Many safety advocates in the US are calling for a lower DUI limit to at least .05. Studies have shown that a driver’s abilities can be affected by just one drink. Safe driving advocates in the US have long been spreading the word that “buzzed driving is impaired driving.”

Even with the US DUI limit of .08, many drivers are surprised to learn that they can still be arrested for DUI with a lower limit if field sobriety tests show that their abilities are impaired.

Cellphone App Warns If You’ve Had Too Much To Drink

December 15, 2014

A new cellphone app produced by the State of Maryland aims to warn you if you’ve had too much to drink. Called ENDUI, as in End DUI, the app was developed under a federal grant in hopes of keeping drunk drivers off the road.

To use the app, the user informs the app of their height, weight, sex, and how many drinks they’ve consumed. Using that information, the app determines their approximate Blood Alcohol Content (BAC). The app can also provide phone numbers for local cab services or designated driver numbers that are pre-programmed by the user.

The app also has games, one of which is a reaction time tester. To test their reaction time, the user must “hit the brakes” each time a pedestrian walks into the path of the car. The game then determines how fast the user reacted and if the user was able to stop in time to avoid hitting the pedestrian.

This app can be helpful but shouldn’t be relied upon for accurate BAC information. For one thing, “one drink” may be hard to determine. Some cocktails, such as Long Island Iced Teas for example, may have three to four shots and contain the alcohol equivalent of up to four drinks. If the user counts that as one drink, the app will be getting bum information.

No one’s metabolic rate is the same and, even though the app can approximate a BAC level based on height, weight, sex, and number of drinks, the only accurate way to measure a person’s BAC is with a breathalyzer. However, it’s better than nothing and serves as a good reminder that someone who has been drinking should take a cab or call a designated driver.

The best thing for anyone who plans to drink anything at all is to have a plan to get home by some other means than by driving their own car. Even one drink can affect your driving abilities. Remember, buzzed driving is impaired driving.

The app is available now on iOS or Android.

Labor Day Drive Sober Or Get Pulled Over Campaign Begins

August 22, 2014

Labor Day is near and that means millions of people will be headed to the beach or lake to celebrate the end of summer. Unfortunately, for many, it also means they will be driving drunk or will become the victim of a drunk driver. To prevent that, law enforcement agencies across the nation have already begun cracking down on drunk drivers. This year’s “Drive Sober Or Get Pulled Over” campaign began on August 15th and will run through the end of Labor Day weekend on September 1st.

How bad is the problem? According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), during the 2012 Labor Day weekend (6 p.m. Friday to 5:59 a.m. Tuesday), 147 people died in drunk driving crashes. On an average day, someone is killed in a drunk driving crash every 51 minutes but, during Labor Day weekend, that figure jumps to one every 34 minutes. Young drivers between the ages of 18-34 make up the largest segment of drunk drivers.

If you plan to include alcohol as part of your Labor Day weekend festivities, make sure you have a safe way to get home. Use a designated driver or some alternate means of transportation. Better yet, enjoy the final holiday of the summer without alcohol. Don’t become a statistic or ruin the lives of your family or some other innocent family by drinking and driving.