Alcohol affects your body and brain in many ways. And that affects your ability to drive safely.
Welcome back and thanks for joining The Kronzek Firm for this discussion about the ways alcohol affects you, and why exactly it’s so dangerous. Alcohol affects almost every part of your body and brain when you’re drinking. It changes the way you perceive and respond to stimuli, and shuts down all sorts of necessary functions in your mind, which has a huge impact on how you drive.
As we explained in the previous article the first two items on the list of what’s directly impacted by alcohol consumption are your judgement and your ability to concentrate. Moving on, we’ll be checking out the next two things that drinking affects…
Alcohol affects your comprehension
Being able to comprehend what’s going on around you is an important part of driving. Understanding road signs and warnings, having a full grasp of how the ever-changing Michigan weather conditions at the time can affect driving conditions, and being able to figure out how to respond appropriately when an unexpected situation come up are all important parts of being able to drive safely.
Drinking alcohol affects your ability to do all of those things and more. It renders you unable to understand the full implications of a hazardous road conditions, and makes understanding road signs, especially the ones you don’t see often, much harder. The more you drink, the more confused you may become, which leaves you unable to respond in an emergency situation. And here in Michigan, we’re all too familiar with emergencies, accidents and crashes that happen all over our roads.
Alcohol affects your coordination
Coordination is critical to doing anything at all safely. Everything from carrying a plate of food and a glass of water to the table, to getting undressed at night and brushing your teeth requires coordination. Being uncoordinated means knocking things over, missing things when you reach for them, and fumbling items because your grasp isn’t secure. As you can imagine, driving a car when your coordination is impaired is extremely dangerous! It’s tough enough to drive through Grand Rapids during morning rush hour, or through Lansing during the evening rush. Booze makes it that much more tricky.
Drinking alcohol also affects both your fine motor skills, and your gross motor skills. So everything from walking to the car, to getting the keys in the ignition is going to be harder. Once you’ve got the car running, steering will be compromised, along with pushing the right pedals, changing gears, and controlling your lights and indicators. In addition, the loss of eye/hand/foot coordination has a huge impact on your reaction time, which puts you and other drivers in danger!
Driving under the influence of alcohol is very risky!
In addition to the risk that you’ll hurt yourself or other people, there’s also the risk that you’ll end up behind bars with a criminal record and a huge expense! Driving drunk is costly, both from a financial perspective, and in terms of human life. So it’s important to only drive when you’re sober! We recommend that you not guess about when you’re sober and when you’re not. If you’ve consumed more than one drink per hour, call a taxi or a friend, and join us next time for the wrap up on how alcohol affects your body and brain.
However, if you or a loved one have made a mistake, or misjudged your abilities under the influence of alcohol, you’re going to need help from the drunk driving experts. At The Kronzek Firm, our experienced DUI defense attorneys have spent decades helping people in Michigan’s lower peninsula fight drunk and drugged driving charges. We fight aggressively to get you the best possible outcome in your case. Call 866 766 5245 (866 7No Jail) as soon as you’ve been charged with drunk driving in Michigan.
