it can't happen to me that's what you said wasn't it bill but it can and just didn't you're not quite sure why let's see if we can find out not too many minutes ago that young woman or child were happy and healthy not their young bodies are crushed and racked with pain maybe they'll live and maybe they'll die but one thing sure the next few minutes hours or maybe days their lives well hang in the balance and you'll have to live up those minutes hours and days knowing you were responsible the police will measure out the skid marks determine where you apply the brakes give you a sobriety test and that will all go into a report that will be reviewed in court maybe you'll be found guilty maybe you won't but you'll never live the memory of waiting waiting to find out if the mother and daughter will live or die then the police are at you with questions where had you been as you've been drinking would you submit to a sobriety test sure why not after all you'd only had a few beers you're not drunk of course you're not drunk not in the common sense of the word but your driving ability was measurably impaired how could it be you feel fine but what you didn't know was that it only takes a few beers to take the keen edge off your driving performance and slow your reaction time you see alcohol is not a stimulant it's a sedative a depressant oh sure the first few drinks make you feel more alive and responsive but actually as the alcohol anders the bloodstream it slows down normal operation of the heart nerve centers and depresses the inhibitory mechanisms of the brain it removes inhibitions and social restraints this is what gives us the feeling of stimulation you have more assurance but less self control and this is when the danger begins you get a superman complex behind the wheel at the very time when you're driving skill and mental outlook i've been seriously damaged when ethyl alcohol which is the foundation of all liquor anders a circulatory system through the stomach it's oxidized by the liver and turned into heat energy in the form of calories unfortunately the liver can only process about three eighths of an ounce of alcohol per hour that's about the amount and three quarters of a shot glass of whiskey or a short beer one more alcohol is taken the liver is unable to process it and it passes into the bloodstream unless carried to all parts of the body as a percentage of alcohol begins to build up in the blood stream the first part of your nervous system to be affected your judgment located in the frontal lobe of the brain this is the area of the brain that determines right from wrong the alcohol works as an anaesthetic and we adopt i don't care or sure i can make it  contemplate stupid things like passing on a curve or a hill we become easily exasperated by the driver we feel isn't going fast enough and we take chances we wouldn't ordinarily take to passing true enough we're not drunk at least not legally drunk by that we mean our blood alcohol content is still below the point one five percent considered by law to be legally intoxicated but those few beers we had can reduce our driving ability as much as twenty five to forty percent a report by the american medical association clearly showed that two shots of one hundred proof whiskey or two twelve ounce bottles of beer can inject a dangerous amount of alcohol into our system if we're driving and the worst part is that we probably aren't aware of it even an hour after having a couple of beers our reaction time to light signals can be reduced as much as six percent in another test that we've shown that after a three ounce drink it took as much as twelve seconds for a person to regain his normal sight after being blinded by the lights of an oncoming car at sixty miles an hour that would be over a thousand feet or a fifth of a mile of blind driving alcohol sometimes causes visual distortion two things become blurred and indistinct another problem which often goes unnoticed by the driver but is no less dangerous is tunnel vision tunnel vision is a phenomena where your field of vision becomes increasingly narrow that is your periphery or sight vision is decreased this makes you vulnerable to cross traffic and is often the cause of sideswipe or intersection accidents the national safety council says that two normal cocktails or four beers can reduce visual acuity as much  wearing dark glasses at night only a fool would drive at night wearing dark glasses but nobody thinks much about driving after four beers the effect of alcohol on vision is particularly serious because ninety percent of the driving decisions we make are based on how well we see so if you must drive don't drink if you do drink and must drive wait let the effects of the alcohol wear off a good rule of thumb wait one hour for each bottle of beer or you take the longer you should wait until it is safe to drive because the danger of having an accident increases with the amount of alcohol in your system for instance under identical driving conditions a person with point zero five percent alcohol in his blood that's about two drinks or a few beers is twice as likely to have an accident as a person with no alcohol in his blood with point one zero percent three to six drinks are a couple of quarts of beer the chances are three times as great and when the blood alcohol as reached point one five percent which is the legal limit the chances are ten times as great a common misapprehension of the drinking driver is that when he first drinks that is during the absorption period as is sometimes referred to the individual readily feels the effects of the alcohol but during the wearing off period he becomes less aware of these effects and deludes himself into thinking he is sober but he is falsely comparing its maximum feeling of intoxication with his beginning feeling of sobriety he may be far from sober and  only making a dangerous comparison we are all aware that alcohol and gasoline don't mix but many of us think it can't happen to us but it can and does an ever increasing numbers each year and it isn't until we have an accident that we seriously ask ourselves why we have that extra drink we all find excuses for drinking those words so different from the rest i need to belong a desire to go along with the group try something new it may start innocently enough a few beers with it is a social custom of our time but today that social custom is invading our society at a younger age than ever before the few drinks of the social drinker made don't seem to present a serious danger but the trouble with drinking and driving is that it is always too late when the emergency arises and our reactions are too slow to avoid disaster it is readily agreed by authorities and tasks that driving skills are to a degree a matter of habit build up over long periods of practice it has also been proven that the latest driving skills mastered the first to go under the influence of liquor therefore the older more experienced driver is less likely to have his skills seriously impaired than a younger less experienced driver one must be able to judge speed and distance traffic patterns make necessary adjustments and be able to react quickly to emergencies after a few drinks the good driver is no longer capable of doing become a poor driver and is a danger to himself and othe this happened to you didn't it bill sure you pass your sobriety test it showed you had only point zero eight percent blood alcohol about half the legal limit they can't convict you on drunk driving can but you always have to face the fact that those beach party beers were a contributing factor in your accident if you hadn't had them you might have hit the brake pedal a second or two earlier those skid marks on the asphalt would have stopped on the right side not the wrong side of that young woman and her daughter the report just came through the little girl died on the way to the hospital and the mother will probably never walk again no matter how your trial comes out you'll always have to live with those facts on