Evening star., 1938-01-16

~ sets ran down a pedestrian
and killed him. Receiving 5000 fine and
six-month sentence, he appealed the
verdict and was recently acquitted by
jury Of IL good men and true.
Evidently" said disguised Judge Ham
mond in dismissing the jury in Northamp-
ton, you did not pay much attention to
the evidence It strikes me as
strange situation when a young man
can admit having 16 drinks with a gin
base and yet be unaffected by them
That would strike any thinking person
as strange. But the Incidents chief value
here is in pointing out that when it comes
to the subject of drinking drivers, the
public at large does precious little thinking.
In Hackensack, N. j., a 28-year-old
housewife, driving her car under the in
fluence Of liquor, ran down and killed a
mother and her 5-year-old daughter.
On Long Island another intoxicated
woman drove up on the sidewalk and
smashed little boy through an iron fence.
On Broadway, New York. a car piloted
by drunk crashed through a safety is
land, injuring a half dozen people and
finging stanchion across the street with
enough force to knock boy off bicycle.
Almost daily the newspapers carry ac-
counts of the death, injury and destruc-
ton wrought by motorists who haven't
'learned that alcohol and gasoline don't
mix. Nevertheless, virtually every State
in the Union is reporting steady increase
in accidents of this type-increases rang
ing from As per cent on the average to
100 per cent and 200 per cent in Arizona
and Colorado
Two Principal Causes Suggested.
The situation continues to grow worse
mainy because, first, the general public
hasn't grasped the truth that it is dan
gerous to drive after drinking, and Sec
ond. the law-enforcement officials are
stumbling around in the dark for ways
and means to meet the issue
On the first count the average man Cor
woman) will blandly tell you. Il always
drive better after a couple of drinks" In
deed, not long ago New York papers car
ried an account of four reporters who took
a public driving test after a few drinks
and discovered that their 'brakine-reac-
ton time" was speeded up by the stmu-
liant.
On the second count recent survey of
102 cities by the United States Conference
OF Mayors showed that in only 20 were
physicians used to determine the effects
OF alcohol on suspected drivers-and in
only couple, like Cincinnati and San
Francisco. were any really scientific tests
employed
Which leads to two logical questions:
Does moderate drinking impair a drivers
efficiency?
Is man sober if he can repeat tongue
twisting phrase without getting his pro-
nuncia:ion tangled?
The answer to the first question in that
two drinks definitely lower a drivers ef-
flciency, in spite of the fact that his
braking-reaction time may, in many cases.
be speeded up temporarily But this is
only one factor in driving responses of
the eye and brain, Coordination Of the
arms and legs, mental attention and emo
tional balance-all these are far more i'm
portant
4NIStt1AcS xQCTedSc Al0rmlngIy.
All these elements were considered in
the tests DR.. w. R. Miles undertook at Yale
with such harmless activity as typing.
For two hours after small shot of whisky,
the subjects typing speed decreased only
per cent-but the mistakes they made
increased 80 per cent. When they in
creased the drink by so per cent, the typing
speed dropped only 4 per cent, but the
error ratio rose to y per cent In short,
when you give the drinker something COM
plicated to do which calls all his faculties
into play. he isn't SO hot, no matter what
he may think about it!
You who think you drive better after q
few drinks, please note these results care
fully. And then. translating them into
terms of such moderate speed as 50
feet per second (40 miles an hour, YOU
begin to see how simple it is for the driver
who's had "only couple of drinks" to get
himself into trouble.
But, of course, the average wise guy saws:
whats the connection between driving a
car and operating typewriter? Maybe I
couldn't type efficiently after a snorter,
either; but can still drive better"
Well. Drs Heise and Halporn, then of the
Uniontown Hospital in Pennsylvania, an
sWered this question by leaving the labora-
tory and taking their subjects out on a
secluded highway for their drinking tests.
They put up "barricades" of various shapes
and sizes along the road, built of f1imsy
cardboard boxes; they rugged up pistols
under the car attached to the brake pedal
to measure various reaction times; they
spent hours with each subject, feeding
him liquor periodically, recording his per-
formances and. above all, keeping close
tabs on his temperamental or psychological
changes.
Marked Drop in Intelligence.
Putting them through their PAGES in
this fashion, the experimenters found
plenty Of things wrong with drivers who
had been drinking everything. indeed.
But the significant thing about it here
is that Of all the faults charged against
them, the most important and the most
striking was the drop in intelligence. This
was especially apparent in the drinkers
increasing inability to analyze a situation
and see where he was wrong. In other
words his Judgment became faulty under
the influence of few drinks-and poor
judgment IS already the most prolific acci-
dent breeder among sober drivers!
Remember, too, that these drivers
weren't really drunk: all but one passed