Study Highlights Dangers of Buzzed Driving

Today’s post is brought to us by LifeSafer. Have you ever used the two-drink-limit rule to help you determine if you’re ok to drive? A new study may have you rethinking your limit.

It’s a common misconception that just having one or two drinks doesn’t make a difference when it comes to blood alcohol levels and that as long as you stay under the two drink limit drivers so often set for themselves, you’ll be able to safely get behind the wheel of your vehicle.

What most people don’t know is that everyone reacts differently to alcohol, and there are a lot of factors that determine how quickly your blood alcohol will rise to the legal limit of .08. In fact, driving under the legal limit while buzzed can sometimes be just as dangerous as  if you were driving with a blood alcohol level of .08.

A study funded by Reuters Health and conducted by the University of California in San Diego has found that driving while buzzed, yet not legally intoxicated, is not safe. They analyzed crash fatalities from 1994 to 2011 and discovered those who blew into a breathalyzer and obtained blood alcohol levels of .01 were 46% more likely to be at fault for a fatal crash than if the driver had nothing to drink at all. In order to get to a .01 blood alcohol level, an average man simply has to drink one can of beer.

There are several lines of thoughts that can be raised by a study like this – it shows how even a little alcohol in your blood stream affects your driving ability, and it also demonstrates how it’s especially dangerous for young drivers who have little tolerance for alcohol coupled with less driving experience to get behind the wheel after one drink. Additionally, the study highlighted how certain drivers could have impaired judgment due to having one or two drinks. It revealed that often when buzzed drivers perform personal assessments of their state of intoxication after a drink or two, they’re inaccurate.

Depending on your weight, height and tolerance for alcohol, blood alcohol levels as low as .02 can affect your coordination, impair your ability to respond to an emergency situation, and affect your ability to multi-task while driving, making getting behind the wheel while buzzed as dangerous as if you were legally impaired.