It’s no secret that driving under the influence is extremely dangerous. In fact, roughly 29 people die every single day from an alcohol-related crash. While we’re all aware that alcohol impairs our driving abilities, we might not fully understand the depth of drunk driving dangers. For many, understanding how alcohol impairs driving abilities is vital to making the choice to avoid it. Therefore, we’re going to take some time and lay it all out there for you…
Drunk Driving Dangers: What Alcohol Does to Your Driving Skills
Slow Reaction Time
When you drink, alcohol reaches your blood stream and begins to slow your response time. This can make you feel as if you’re moving in slow motion. By slowing your reaction time, you’re unable respond quickly to in-coming objects. As you can imagine, this takes away a very important part of driving skills. When you drive, you have to be able to respond quickly to things in the road and on-coming traffic. For instance, by just taking a second too long to respond to the person braking in front of you, you will end up in a crash.
Loss of Coordination
In addition to slow reaction time, alcohol causes you to lose coordination. It will reduce hand, eye, and foot coordination–all things you need to drive safely. After heavy drinking, you may find simple coordination tasks to be difficult. For instance, you may be unable to walk in a straight line or place your key in the ignition easily. This lack of coordination causes serious drunk driving dangers making you unable to operate a vehicle. Steering, braking, and accelerating all require these forms of coordination. In addition, you need that coordination to maneuver through traffic and around other vehicles as well.
Decreased Vision
Alcohol effects your vision, making this one of the drunk driving dangers. In some cases, people experience a loss of vision after drinking heavy amounts of alcohol. For others, they may experience blurred or double vision. These changes in sight can be a serious hazard while behind the wheel. Obviously, your ability to see clearly is crucial to driving safely.
The way alcohol effects the body has a direct effect on your driving skills. Drunk driving dangers come directly from the way alcohol impairs these motor skills. So, for your own safety and to avoid facing DWI chargers, be sure you have a ride home before picking up a drink.