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June Tips of the Month: You Drink &
Drive - You Lose
National Awareness Campaign
Drinking and don't mix. An
alcohol-related motor vehicle crash kills someone every 30
minutes and causes non-fatal injuries to someone every two
minutes. Impaired driving will affect one in three Americans in
their lifetime.
Lee County had 426 trauma alerts due to
motor vehicle crashes from October 1, 2009 to September 30,
2010. Of these patients, 134 (33%) had alcohol on board.
This data is from trauma alerts only and does not include
routine motor vehicle crashes.
The legal Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC)
limit is 0.08 for Florida. Impairment can result from any BAC
above .00 and increases with the amount of alcohol consumed.
After just one drink, a driver can begin to
lose the ability to perform the tasks necessary to drive a car:
braking, steering, changing lanes, and using judgment to adjust
to changing road conditions.
According to the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, studies show that the relative risk of
being killed in a single vehicle crash for drivers with a BAC
level between .05 and .09 is 11 times that of drivers with .00
BAC level. Alcohol blocks the messages going to your brain and
alters your perceptions, emotions, vision, hearing and
coordination.
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