Driving after even one drink is asking for trouble. The bottom line is that when you drive after drinking, you are driving with impairment. After alcohol reaches your stomach, it enters your blood and goes to all parts of your body and reaches your brain in 20 to 40 minutes. Alcohol affects those parts of your brain that control your judgment and motor skills. The more you drink, the more trouble you will have judging distances, speeds, and the movements of other vehicles. You will also have much more difficulty controlling your own car.

Remember, one of the most dangerous things about alcohol is that your judgment is the first thing to be impaired. It is a fact that over half of all drivers have driven after they have been drinking. Whether you drink all the time or never drink, you should know that somewhere down the road you will meet a driver who has been drinking.

In recent years, drugs have become a problem with many drivers on the roads. The “drug addict” is not the only person causing a problem. Most of the drugs for headaches, colds, hay fever, allergies, or nerves can make you sleepy and affect your control of the vehicle. Be sure you know how any drugs or medication you take may affect your driving and ability to operate a vehicle safely on our highways.

Watching the HBO documentary, “SMASHED: Toxic Tales of Teens and Alcohol": By U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Mari Matsumoto, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Here are a few facts about drinking and the use of drugs that you should know:

If your blood or breath alcohol concentration level is .08 grams, the point of presumed intoxication in Utah, you are six times more likely to have a crash than if you are sober.
Almost half of the crashes in which people are killed nationally involve drinking. There are more than 16,000 of those crashes each year.
The average person is likely to be legally intoxicated after consuming three mixed drinks, three glasses of wine, or three cans of beer in one hour, and will stay drunk by having only one additional drink every hour.
Drugs and alcohol should not be taken at the same time. Alcohol can have an unpredictable effect on drugs, which in turn, will react much differently in your body.
If an officer requests you to take a test to see if you have alcohol or drugs in your system (including prescription medication) and you refuse to be tested, your license may be revoked for 18 months for the first offense, and 36 months for a second or subsequent offense. If you are under the age of 21, the license will be revoked for either 18 months for a first offense, or 36 months for a second offense; or until you reach the age of 21, whichever is longer. This is called the Utah Implied Consent Law.
Studies show that people who use marijuana:
- Make more driving mistakes
- Are arrested for more traffic violations
- Are more likely to be bothered by headlight glare

(Select the link Video - Lives Affected for more information. There are three levels of resolution, also select the link "Utah laws and Drunk Driving

07.03 DRUNK DRIVING Lives Affected Video and Helpful Web Links

Video - Lives Affected (MADD)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5faKg5Fz-g

Utah Laws and Drunk Driving

http://dld.utah.gov/dui-faqs/

National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration Laws

http://www.nhtsa.gov/Impaired

07.03 DRUNK DRIVING Lives Affected Video Essay

teacher-scored 50 points possible

Click next to get detailed instructions for this assignment

This work is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.