Analysis of the predictability of accidents and the impairment of male driving ability by alcohol.

Few people consider accidents a disease because accidents-along with homicide and suicide-don't fit our usual understanding of health, illness, and treatment. Our focus on illness blinds us to what truly harms or kills Americans. Yet, it's the third leading cause of death for men, surpassed only by heart disease and cancer. Before age 34, deaths from accidents, suicide, and homicide outnumber all other causes. In the United States, the average person will experience a car accident once every 10 years; a serious car accident once every 20 years; and a fatal car accident once every 60 years. Accidents-especially those involving cars-are perhaps the most predictable of all leading causes of death. You can predict when car accidents are most frequent: New Year's Eve and spring and summer weekends, between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. You can predict where accidents will happen: most within 25 miles of home. You can predict who will be affected: most occur to men aged 16–29, although men in all age groups are at high risk. Experts even know why car accidents happen: alcohol is the culprit behind about half of the 46,000 motor vehicle crashes each year. According to the Sleep Disorders Center Association, drowsy driving is the second most common cause of one- or two-car accidents. Speeding is associated with 35-40% of all car and other traffic accidents. Night driving is involved in two-thirds of traffic accidents and is more than three times more likely to occur during the day. A person with 20/40 vision during the day may only have 20/100 vision at night. Fortunately, there is evidence that road fatalities are unlikely to continue rising, contrary to previously predicted trends. What has prevented thousands of deaths? The 55 mph speed limit has prompted more than half the nation's drivers to drive more safely. Roads and cars have become safer. Due to an aging population, there are relatively fewer young drivers, who tend to be involved in more accidents than older drivers. Higher gasoline prices in recent years have led people to travel shorter distances. Most importantly, the rate of drunk driving accidents has decreased significantly, especially among drivers between the ages of 15 and 20. Alcohol impairs your most essential safe driving abilities: judgment, vision, engine coordination, and reaction time. Drinking impairs your ability to judge how fast you're driving, how far the car in front of you is, and whether you have time to pass. While the effects of alcohol on vision are not immediately obvious, 85–90% of the information you rely on for driving decisions comes from your eyes. Alcohol reduces the ability to control the amount of light entering the eyes, distracts attention, causes double vision, impairs depth perception, narrows peripheral vision, damages color vision, and reduces night vision and visual acuity. Drivers who have been intoxicated are less likely to wear seatbelts and-contrary to popular belief-are 2–4 times more likely to suffer serious injury than calm drivers who have been in accidents. Alcohol also makes the diagnosis and treatment of accident injuries more difficult. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that far more male drivers than female drivers are involved in alcohol-related crashes. This is partly because societal norms place greater emphasis on men driving, especially at night, when drinking is most likely. Male drivers aged 21-24 are most likely to be involved in alcohol-related highway crashes. The combined lack of experience in both drinking and driving makes these young men particularly vulnerable to accidents. Among adult drivers, frequent social drinkers, reclusive drinkers, and male alcoholics are involved in more alcohol-related traffic accidents than other drivers. Alcohol is also a contributing factor to many other accidents. High blood alcohol concentrations cause many deaths from falls, burns, drowning, and accidents at home and at work. On water, 35-38% of recreational boating accidents may be related to people with high blood alcohol concentrations. In the air, at least one in ten pilots who died in ordinary plane crashes between 1975 and 1981 tested positive for high blood alcohol concentrations. Many people wonder how much alcohol they can drink before driving safely, and there is no simple answer. In most cases, a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.1% is the legal definition of alcohol poisoning. By comparison, a BAC of 0.5% would result in deep coma and near-death. Drivers with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.1% or higher are 3 to 15 times more likely to cause a fatal accident than sober drivers. However, according to a report by the American Medical Association's Scientific Committee, a BAC of 0.05% or lower can also impair driving skills. For a 160-pound man, that means one drink per hour for more than six hours. One drink can be defined as 5 ounces of 12% wine, 12 ounces of 5% beer, or 1.5 ounces of 80% spirits. The American Medical Association recommends that a BAC of 0.05% be used as the standard evidence of impaired driving in all these situations. The quantity and type of beverage greatly affect the degree of alcohol poisoning. For drivers, "there is no 'safe' drink." When is it considered drunk? When: someone offers to drive him home; he can't remember how many drinks he's had; he has difficulty walking or talking; he seems to be the only drinker. Note: People with alcohol poisoning are unlikely to be able to distinguish when they are unfit to drive because alcohol impairs judgment. So how long does it take to detoxify and become a safe driver again? There's no quick way to calm down. It takes the liver about two hours to completely metabolize the alcohol from a regular drink. Coffee without milk, cold showers, physical exercise, fresh air, or even a few breaths of pure oxygen are not effective sedatives. Their only effect is to create a "completely sober drunk." A driver with a hangover after excessive drinking is just as dangerous as a drunk driver. If you're still not fully sober after drinking too much, test yourself and drive your car back to a parallel parking lot.