Impaired driving continues to kill thousands of people in the U.S. every year. About 30% of all traffic crash fatalities in the United States involve drunk drivers (with BACs of .08 g/dL or higher).
Alcohol and drugs can impair your judgment and dull your senses. In fact, there have already been lots of accidents documented and reported about driving under the influence of any substance. Still, some people keep doing it.
Aside from the danger it brings to your life, you are also endangering the lives of other road users. Add to that, you can also be put under legal scrutiny. According to impaired driving accident lawyer Brian W. Easton, victims of accidents deserve to receive just compensation for the trouble they did not warrant.
Tempting fate with your life is never going to have a good outcome. If you are not convinced, here is how impaired driving causes serious accidents on the road.
The Impact of Alcohol on Driving Ability
Alcohol, regardless of its amount, affects the driving capability. The extent of impairment in judgment, coordination, or response time is influenced by the quantity of alcohol intake.
Near-intoxication can mess with someone’s reasoning and sense of occurrence and passage of time and space. All those laugh-outs should remain joyful, without even an ounce of regret.
Member organization means looking out for each other. Drinking requires responsibility. If you’re going to drink, you should make sure that someone who is not intoxicated can drive you home.
Being responsible does not mean you are killing the fun. It is essentially enjoying yourself without a worry of getting into an accident later.
The Role of Drugs in Impaired Driving
While the vast majority will associate impaired driving with alcohol, drugs, whether legal or illegal, impose enormous impediments to a driver’s abilities. Prescription drugs, any other drugs, and illegal substances impair judgment, impede reaction time, and mess up coordination.
You can’t drive after taking a cigarette or a little medicine. Many drivers cannot precisely describe their feelings caused by drugs, and this is a serious concern for other road users. It is not a question of your personal assessment; instead, it is a question of the safety of your family, your friends, and all other users of the road.
Be it driving under the influence or not, you are the one that gets into trouble but others will suffer, too.
Fatigue: An Overlooked Impairment
One of the biggest causes of impairment that is not paid much attention to is fatigue. It still constitutes a large part of impaired driving. Even in cases when you are not feeling drunk, sleepiness will definitely lower your speed and affect the quality of your decisions.
Have you ever felt the dreaded eyelids going down or drifting away? At those times, terrible accidents can happen. It’s not just you who has trouble with it. Many others face the same situation.
Always ensure your safety by taking a nap when it is time to stop or simply call for help. Your safety and all others’ depends on it.
The Statistics Behind Impaired Driving Accidents
An annual award of lives creates public concern about safety when hit by an impaired driver in accidents. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drunk-driving crashes kill more or less 30 individuals per day in the U.S. In other words, an accident caused by alcohol occurs once every 50 minutes.
Getting medical treatment is just the beginning of your ordeal. You must first figure out what doctor to see after a car accident. This will also create a clear record of your injuries that can be used as evidence in your case.
On the contrary, one-fifth of fatal crashes involve drugs, whether legal drugs or illegal substances. Such numbers do not represent statistics but friends, relatives, and neighbors.
Anything you drink or take will somehow impair your ability to drive safely. As a community of life and safety, you should commend the seriousness of these statistics.
Strategies for Prevention and Awareness
The statistics on drunk driving are frightening and have to be put into prevention and awareness. This can begin by encouraging friends and family members to take a stand, whereby they stop a drunk driver or ask for a rideshare after spending a great night out. People in this type of effort need to feel like they are part of it and are responsible for it.
The people who help their friends out when they’re drunk should know that they are not the only ones doing what they are doing. Empower through social media stories and statistics.
Every little step will matter; working together, these cases of impaired driving can be reduced.