History Of Gm Essays - Alcohol Law, Driving Under The Influence

History Of Gm DRINKING AND DRIVING Drinking and Driving is dangerous to yourself and others around you. Alcohol is a depressant; it impairs your ability to drive, slows down your reaction time and causes you to make some risky decisions that you wouldn't normally take. The penalty for Drinking and Driving is driving Under the Influence (DUI). If your Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) registers over .08, which is 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood, you are driving Under the Influence. After having one drink it takes approximately one hour for your body to burn off the alcohol. You can't depend on yourself to be able to drive after an hour because everyone processes alcohol differently and you might even feel the effects long after you've been drinking. Your BAC is based on; your bodyweight, how much you have had to drink, the amount of food you may have eaten before drinking, the length of time over which you have had alcohol, and the speed at which your own body processes alcohol (once again, everyone's is different). There is no way to make your body burn alcohol faster, eating food, drinking coffee, exercising, or taking a cold shower may make you feel better but they have no effect on your rate that alcohol is processed. The following drinks all contain about .5 oz of alcohol; 12 oz of beer, 4 oz of wine, 1 oz of 80 proof liquors. If you are under 21 in California it is also illegal to purchase alcohol or transport alcohol unless accompanied by someone of the age 21 or over. It is also illegal to drive with an open container of alcohol regardless of the age. Of course the penalty would be more severe if the driver is under 21.The penalty for Driving Under the influence can be any combination of the following; prison sentence, fine or license suspension. The penalties can be altered depending on how much you've been drinking, past history of drinking and driving, the amount of time between your past Driving Under the Influence charges and the severity damage if you got in an accident. If an officer suspects you of drinking Under the Influence, you will be forced to pull over, perform a field sobriety test and give a breath sample. The officer must have good reasons to request the test and breath sample. If you refuse to do so it will be charged against you later if you are convicted driving Under the Influence. Bibliography The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA, 1997) defines a fatal traffic crash as being alcohol-related if either a driver or a non occupant (e.g., pedestrian) had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.01 grams per deciliter (g/dl) or greater in a police-reported traffic crash. Persons with a BAC of 0.10 g/dl or greater involved in fatal crashes are considered to be intoxicated. This is the legal limit of intoxication in most states. Traffic fatalities in alcohol-related crashes fell by 6 percent from 1996 to 1997. The 16,189 alcohol-related fatalities in 1997 (38.6 percent of total traffic fatalities for the year) represent a 32 percent reduction from the 23,641 alcohol-related fatalities reported in 1987 (51.0 percent of the total). NHTSA estimates that alcohol was involved in 39 percent of fatal crashes and in 7 percent of all crashes in 1997. The 16,189 fatalities in alcohol-related crashes during 1997 represent an average of one alcohol-related fatality every 32 minutes. More than 327,000 persons were injured in crashes where police reported that alcohol was present -- an average of one person injured approximately every 2 minutes. Approximately 1.5 million drivers were arrested in 1996 for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. This is an arrest rate of 1 for every 122 licensed drivers in the United States (1997 data not yet available). About 3 in every 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives. In 1997, 30 percent of all traffic fatalities occurred in crashes in which at least one driver or nonoccupant had a BAC of 0.10 g/dl or greater. More than 68.5 of the 12,704 people killed in such crashes were themselves intoxicated. The remaining 31.5 were passengers, nonintoxicated drivers, or nonintoxicated nonoccupants. The rate of alcohol