The Bottle And Throttle

[Music] it can't happen to me that's what you said wasn't it bill but it can and just didn't you're not quite sure why let's see if we can find out too many minutes ago that young woman and her child were happy and healthy now their young bodies are crushed and racked with pain maybe they'll live and maybe they'll die but one thing sure the next few minutes hours or maybe days their lives will hang in the balance and you'll have to live out those minutes hours and days knowing you were responsible the police will measure out the skid marks determine where you applied the brakes give you a sobriety test and it will all go into a report that will be reviewed in court maybe you'll be found guilty maybe you wound W but you'll never outlive the memory of waiting waiting to find out if the mother and daughter will live or die then the police are at you with questions where had you been had you been drinking would you submit to a sobriety test sure why not after all you'd only had a few beers you're not drunk of course you're not drunk not in the common sense of the word but your driving ability was measurably impaired how could it be you feel fine but what you didn't know was that it only takes a few beers to take the Keen edge off your driving performance and slow your reaction time you see alcohol is not a stimulate it's a sedative a depressant oh sure the first few drinks make you feel more alive and responsive but actually as the alcohol enters the bloodstream it slows down normal operation of the heart and nerve centers and depresses the inhibitory mechanisms of the brain it removes inhibitions and social restraints this is what gives us the feeling of stimulation you have more Assurance but less self-control and this is when the danger begins you get a Superman complex behind the wheel at the very time when your driving skill and mental Outlook have been seriously damaged when ethyl alcohol which is the foundation of all liquor enters the circulatory system through the stomach it's oxidized by the liver and turned into heat energy in the form of calories unfortunately the liver can only process about 38 of an ounce of alcohol per hour that's about the amount in 3/4 of a shot glass of whiskey or a short beer when more alcohol is taken the liver is unable to process it and it passes into the bloodstream and is carried to all parts of the body as the percentage of alcohol begins to build up in the bloodstream the first part of your nervous system to be affected is your judgment Center located in the frontal lobe of the brain this is the area of the brain that determines right from wrong the alcohol works as an anesthetic and we adopt a I don't care or sure I can make an attitude we contemplate stupid things like passing on a curve or a hill we become easily exasperated by the driver we feel isn't going fast enough and we take chances we wouldn't ordinarily take to pass him true enough we're not drunk at at least not legally drunk by that we mean our blood alcohol content is still below the 0.15% considered by law to be legally intoxicated but those few beers we had can reduce our driving ability as much as 25 to 40% a report by the American Medical Association clearly showed that two shots of 100 proof whiskey or two 12 oz bottles of beer can inject a dangerous amount of alcohol into our system if we're driving and the worst part is that we probably aren't aware of it even an hour after having a couple of beers our reaction time the light signals can be reduced as much as 6% in another test it was shown that after a 3 o drink it took as much as 12 seconds for a person to regain his normal sight after being blinded by the lights of an oncoming car at 60 M an hour that would be over 1,000 ft or a fifth of a mile of blind dve ding alcohol sometimes causes visual Distortion too Things become blurred and [Music] indistinct another problem which often goes unnoticed by the driver but is no less dangerous is tunnel vision tunnel vision is a phenomena where your field of vision be increasingly narrow that is your periphery or side vision is decreased this makes you vulnerable to cross traffic and as often the cause of sideswipe or intersection accidents the national Safety Council says that two normal cocktails or four beers can reduce visual Acuity as much as wearing dark glasses at night not only a fool would drive at night wearing dark glasses but nobody thinks much about driving after four beers the effect of alcohol on vision is particularly serious because 90% of the driving decisions we make are B based on how well we see so if you must drive don't drink if you do drink and must drive wait let the effects of the alcohol wear off a good rule of thumb wait 1 hour for each bottle of beer or each ounce of whiskey the more alcohol you take the longer you should wait until it is safe to drive because the danger of having an accident increases with the amount of alcohol in your system for instance under identic driving conditions a person with 0.005% alcohol in his blood that's about two drinks or a few beers is twice as likely to have an accident as a person with no alcohol in his blood with 10% 3 to six drinks or a couple of quarts of beer the chances are three times as great and when the blood alcohol has reached 15% which is the legal limit the chances are 10 times as great [Music] a common misapprehension of the drinking driver is that when he first drinks that is during the absorption period as it sometimes referred to the individual readily feels the effects of the alcohol but during the wearing off period he becomes less aware of these effects and deludes himself into thinking he is sober but he is falsely comparing his maximum feeling of intoxication with his beginning feeling of sobriety he may be far from sober and is only making a dangerous comparison we are all aware that alcohol and gasoline don't mix but many of us think it can't happen to us but it can and does in ever increasing numbers each year and it isn't until we have an accident that we seriously ask ourselves why we had that extra [Music] drink [Applause] we all find excuses for drinking bills weren't so different from the rest a need to belong a desire to go along with the group try something new it may start innocently enough a few beers with the gang it is a social custom of our time but today that social custom is invading our society at a younger age than ever before the few drinks that the social Drinker may take don't seem to present a serious danger but the trouble with drinking and driving is that that it is always too late when the emergency arises and our reactions are too slow to avoid disaster it is readily agreed by authorities and tests that driving skills are to a degree a matter of habit build up over long periods of practice it has also been proven that the latest driving skills mastered are the first to go when under the influence of liquor therefore the older more experienced driver is less likely to have his skills seriously impaired than the younger less experienced driver one must be able to judge speed and distance follow traffic patterns make necessary adjustments and be able to react quickly to emergencies after a few drinks the good driver is no longer capable of doing this he has become a poor driver and is a danger to himself and [Music] others this happened to you didn't it Bill sure you passed your sobriety test it showed you had only 0.008% blood alcohol about half the legal limit they can't convict you on drunk driving can they but you'll always have to face the fact that those beach party beers were a contributing factor in your accident if you hadn't had them you might have hit the brake pedal a second or two earlier those skid marks on the asphalt would have stopped on the right side not the wrong side of that young woman and her daughter the report just came through the little girl died on the way to the hospital and the mother will probably never walk again no matter how your trial comes out you'll always have to live with those facts won't you Bill a child dead a mother crippled not a pleasant future to face at the age of [Music] 18 oh