Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Rear-end collisions are about the most preventable of accidents. Yet they
are common. Allow enough following distance. It’s the best defensive
driving maneuver, in both city and rural driving. You never know when the
vehicle in front of you is going to brake or turn suddenly.
Drunken Driving
Death and injury associated with drinking and driving is a national tragedy.
It’s the number one contributor to the highway death toll, claiming
thousands
of victims every year.
Alcohol affects four things that anyone needs to drive a vehicle:
Judgment
Muscular Coordination
Vision
Attentiveness
Police records show that almost half of all motor vehicle-related deaths
involve alcohol. In most cases, these deaths are the result
of someone who
was drinking and driving. In recent years, some 18,000 annual motor
vehicle-related deaths have been associated with the use of alcohol, with
more than
300,000 people injured.
Many adults
- by some estimates, nearly half the adult population -
choose never to drink alcohol, so they never drive after drinking. For
persons under
21, it’s against the law in every U.S. state to drink alcohol.
There are good medical, psychological and developmental reasons for these
laws.
The obvious way to solve this highway safety problem is for people never to
drink alcohol and then drive. But what if people do? How much is “too
much” if the driver plans to drive? It’s a lot less than many might think.
Although it depends on each person and situation, here is some general
information
on the problem.
The Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of someone who
is drinking
depends upon four things:
How much alcohol consumed
The drinker’s body weight
The amount of food that is consumed before and during drinking
The length of time it’s taken the drinker to consume the alcohol
According
to the American Medical Association, a 180-pound (82 kg)
person who drinks three 12-ounce
(355 ml) bottles of beer in an hour will
end up with a BAC of about
0.06 percent. The person would reach the same
BAC by drinking three 4-ounce
(1 20 ml) glasses of wine or three mixed
drinks if each had
1-1/2 ounces (45 ml) of a liquor like whiskey, gin or
vodka.
4-2
