A Health Tech Blog has this week posted a new entry entitled “Drinking and Driving & Not a Good Match.”Good point. But didn’t we already know that? It appears that no would be the answer.
The short piece compares the tolerance level of different countries, and how much alcohol a person is allowed in their system, before they are considered to be drink-driving.
And the results were quite shocking. The blog states that 1 in 3 car accidents in the USA are alcohol related, and with similar laws in regard to drink-driving here in the UK, we can only assume the statistics are similar here too.
It is therefore important to ask ourselves, do we really know how much we are drinking? There are websites available which tells you how many units are in which drinks and home breathalyzers are popular amongst novelty Christmas gifts only to be never used.
However helpful these tools may be, they are sadly, infrequently used.
How many people are actually aware how a drink will affect them, until the deed is done? A person can drink ten pints and be “fine” one night, but have two pints another, and be on the floor in a pool of vomit. Factors such as health, how much you have eaten, and what you’re drinking can determine exactly how you feel after a drink, and arguably, not many would want to drink when they are completely smashed anyway.
But the most shocking and real point, comes from the fact that, many convince themselves they haven’t actually had that much.
The blog states: “Some countries have a so called zero tolerance (Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia), which for the drivers means trouble with law if any alcohol is detected regardless of the amount. This brings "legal security" in a sense that it is undisputable one is not allowed to have been drinking at all before operating a vehicle. Some countries allow some alcohol, yet it is often confusing as to how much one can actually drink to be within the limits. The highest tolerance is 0.08 % (in the United States, UK, Canada, and Ireland), while other countries have 0.05 or less.”
Perhaps in order to really tackle the problem, we could take an example from Hungary, Romanic etc. Or perhaps, not driving to the pub would be an easier solution?
In a society of “binge drinkers”, it is terrifying to know, that more than half of youths drive to their night on the town, creating an even larger temptation to drive home. The blog, which at first appears to be stating the obvious, has actually done a good job in resurfacing a very good point which needs re-instating more often than we think.
The supporting video (shown below) with statistics, emotional music, and images of car crashed due to alcohol, are enough to put anyone off their chardonnay.
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