Driving Safety
Recent campaigns against drink driving
On November the 28th 2005 the UK Government Department
for Transport launched its annual THINK! Christmas
drink drive campaign which was widely publicized
in all the media. It claims that campaigns aimed at increasing
public awareness over the last 13 years have helped to
save about 20,000 lives. Unhappily the
statistics also show the need for the dangers of drink
driving to be kept prominently in the public eye.
The grim facts about the effects of drink driving
- Around 16% of all road deaths involve a driver who
is over the legal alcohol limit.
- The Government aims to target its campaign intensively
at males between the ages of 17
and 29.
- Drink driving cause an average of 3,000
deaths or serious injuries every year
- Provisional figures for 2003 show that 560
lives were lost in incidents involving a driver
over the legal limit. It might be a small percent of
the population but imagine if a group of 500+ people
were to be killed at once in a national disaster and
the devastating long term effects on families and survivors.
- Of over 500,000 breath tests carried out each year
100,000 (20%) are positive.
- Although the law specifies a legal alcohol limit, in
reality people are affected in a
number of different ways according to a variety of factors by how much they
drink - even the day before.
- An individual's subjective assessment of his or her
own ability to make judgments and react properly are
almost never accurate (not even when sober). Nobody
is an exception and it
is foolish and deluded for anybody to think that they
can 'take your drink better' than another person - particularly
when it comes to driving.
- The distance between here and
eternity is only a split second for the drink
driver, or another innocent driver or pedestrian.
- The only simple answer is - just
don't drink and then drive at all. Even that
cannot protect you from the next person coming towards
you who chose to ignore this campaign.
And that's only alcohol...
Like it or not, recreational drug use
in the UK has risen substantially over the last 10 years.
Sometimes people combine both drugs and alcohol. Driving
under the influence of drugs will see someone else off
the planet just as effectively as drink driving. In case
anyone really needs reminding these are the effects of
various drugs outlined on the department's web site -
- Slower reaction times
- Poor concentration
- Sleepiness/fatigue
- Confused thinking
- Distorted perception
- Over confidence, so you take unnecessary
risks
- Impaired co-ordination
- Erratic behaviour
- Nausea
- Hallucinations
- Blurred vision/enlarged pupils
- Aggression
- Panic attacks and paranoia
- Tremors
- Dizziness
- Cramps
For more information, materials and resources visit The
THINK! Road Safety Web site at -
http://www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/campaigns/drinkdrive/drinkdrive.htm
(copy and paste into the address bar in your browser)
