Drinking and Driving

Sergeant Bruce [Music] reporting I rushed over immediately after the call came in but it was all over when I arrived the ambulance was just pulling away I talked to officer Bennett to get the particulars and he showed me his report there was the whole story and three letters HB d h BD had been drinking two people seriously injured as a result of that deadly mixture alcohol and gasoline another report filed with those three deadly letters HB D it could have been d o a Dead on Arrival here's a familiar scene to all drivers a busy intersection and here's where you will see all kinds of drivers male female young and old some of them are good drivers and some not so good some are inclined to be Reckless but most are pretty cautious here's one of the more cautious drivers this driver is too obviously cautious for the reason that he's had a lot of drinks and he knows that he's drunk in this driver's fuzzy judgment he wants to avoid being picked up so he's over cautious drives very deliberately and slowly and his safety precautions are exaggerated he's dangerous but he's not hard to pick up for the protection of the driver as well as the rest of us law enforcement against this sort of driving must be very strict there's an old saying that says alcohol and gasoline don't mix believe me it's true in analyzing fatal accidents we find that in an average recent year about one in every six wrecks involved a driver who had been drinking before the accident where pedestrians are concerned one in every four adults kills had been drinking before he was struck the majority of these drivers and pedestrians were not dead drunk like the first driver we saw but were average nor normal people who had used an intoxicant in moderation and considered themselves perfectly capable of driving a car or walking in front of one the driver who drinks before driving should realize that alcohol definitely affects both his driving ability and judgment Just One Drink can impair driving safety and efficiency alcohol slows coordination of eyes hands and feet it impairs vision and hearing it slows reaction time and dulls attention to other dangers on the highway but worst of all scientific laboratory experiments have shown that alcohol reflects itself in our driving by impairing our judgment and self-criticism which in turn tends to cause excessive speed unsafe passing and disregard for other drivers and pedestrians because of this problem careful scientific tests are given to prove that a driver is not physically capable of steering 3,000 lb of high powered steel through the streets of our city about 38 states are now using tests in an effort to control drunken drivers these tests are also useful in discovering whether a driver is drunk or sick suffering from insulin shock or an overdose of sedatives exhibiting results from a blow on the head or other injuries or shows any of the symptoms usually associated with drunkenness while these people may be a menace to our safety they are not guilty of drunken driving from scientific tests we have definitely established that drivers whose blood contain as little as 15 parts of alcohol to 1,000 of blood have an accident rate 55 times higher than drivers who have not been drinking when a person has been celebrating you'd better play it safe and let someone else do the driving never forget that alcohol is a depressant not a stimulant and your reaction time in coordination will be slow and impaired the fellow who tells you he can drive better when he's had a few drinks has a very good chance of ending up like this driver who wasn't drunk he just had a few now we won't have any for quite a while the best solution for this problem is a feeling of individual responsibility and a realistic appraisal of one's capabilities and limitations if you hear yourself telling someone that drinking doesn't affect your driving that's the time for you to worry science has proven you are wrong there are a lot of people with personal experience who would be glad to tell you you're wrong if they could but they can't there are only statistics now don't kid yourself if you drive don't drink if you drink don't [Music] drive