Drunken driving can land you and others in big trouble.

Who does not like to go for drive on roads or stroll after meals? All like to do something extra apart from every day’s monotonous routine. But decision of many to go out for a drive turns terrible due to mistake of others. Drunk driving puts at risk not only the life of the person behind the wheel, but also of innocent people. Just recall many incidents happened days before in which a pedestrian was crushed to death by a speeding vehicle, a family crossing the road was hit by a rashly driven vehicle and many others. Most of such vehicles were being driven by a drunk driver. “Impairment by alcohol is an important factor in causing accidents and in increasing the consequences of the same”, states the official website of the Delhi Traffic Police. “Alcohol consumption by drivers puts pedestrians and riders of motorized two wheelers at risk”, it adds.

According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, about 16 persons die every hour across India in road mishaps. While the report titled ‘Road Accidents in India 2014’ carries the statistics indicating the number of persons injured and dead in road hazards, it doesn’t specifically mention the number of persons affected by drunk driving.

A total of 4,89,400 accidents led to 1,37,572 deaths and 4,93,474 injuries across the country in 2014. Tamil Nadu followed by Maharashtra and then Madhya Pradesh witnessed the most number of road accidents. The following thirteen states accounted for 86.3% of total road accidents in the entire country.
According to the World Health Organisation, “The immediate effects of alcohol on the brain are either depressing or stimulating in nature, depending on the quantity consumed”. It further says that alcohol consumption “results in impairment which increases the likelihood of a crash since it produces poor judgement, increased reaction time, lower vigilance and decreased visual acuity. Physiologically, alcohol also lowers blood pressure and depresses consciousness and respiration. Alcohol can impair judgement and increase crash risk even at relatively low Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) levels. However, the effects become progressively worse as the BAC increases”.

How drinking affects driving

The law states that any person under the influence of alcohol or drugs, driving or attempting to drive a motor vehicle found to have an alcohol level exceeding 30 mg per 100 ml of blood detected by a breath analyzer, shall be:

What is the impact of losing a loved member of the family can be answered by those who loose someone that too due to blunder of someone else. The law will punish the culprit and after some years of jail the offender will be out for normalcy but victim’s family is shattered forever and irreparable loss can never be fulfilled. Various celebrities too were involved in drunken driving cases and were escaped or got the minimum punishment. But such incidents have ripped our law and justice.

Let us all pledge that we will never drive vehicle in drunken condition. Deliberately driving vehicle in drunken condition is a crime and if somebody loses life due to this heinous deed will not be counted as accidental death but a deliberate murder of somebody. I will really appreciate if you pledge never to drive in drunken condition. If you ever get drunk, prefer to stay where you got drunk or leave you vehicle safely somewhere and hire a taxi. Save yourself – Save others.