Since 1981, every President has declared December as National Impaired Driving Prevention Month. The goal of this awareness month is to provide information about how driving impaired on drugs or alcohol impacts communities and individuals. In fact, impaired driving impacts everyone - here’s how.
What Driving Impaired Is
When you consume too much alcohol or drugs, your body responds to it in different ways. Typically, many people experience slurred speech, blurry eyesight and a lower ability to move their arms and legs. Together, the lack of coordination with drowsiness and visual impairment can lead to other problems, but the moment an inebriated person sits in the driver’s seat of a car, they are now driving impaired.
Some incorrectly assume that only drunk people can drive impaired. That’s false! Individuals who drive while high on any drugs - even recreational weed - are also driving impaired. This is because of how those drugs impact our bodies, much in the same way that alcohol does. Because of the intense changes our bodies experience when we consume drugs, many officials include driving while high as part of impaired driving statutes.
How Driving Impaired Affects Individuals
There are different ways driving impaired affects individuals.
The person who’s impaired: If you’re driving impaired, you’re putting yourself at risk. Not only could you crash your car and kill someone, but you could also have a medical emergency while driving as the result of overdosing or alcohol poisoning. Additionally, you driving impaired can affect other individuals because you could kill them. Because of increased attention to impaired driving, many people incorrectly assume that rates of impaired driving are low and that it hardly happens anymore. Unfortunately, December of 2018 saw over 800 deaths in alcohol-related crashes, according to MADD.
People who know someone driving impaired: Individuals who know that someone’s driving impaired and do not do anything to stop their actions are also affected by impaired driving. Many of them experience immense guilt and shame for not preventing others from driving impaired. This is why many restaurants and bars require bartenders to cut off patrons after they reach a certain level of inebriation.
Individuals & families who are hurt as a result of impaired driving: If someone drives impaired, and they have others in the car, they can affect those people, especially if they get in a car accident or get pulled over. Other individuals and families can be affected if they’re the ones who are hit by an impaired driver. Lives are immediately changed - whether it’s physical therapy to recover or funeral expenses, no one’s life is the same after experiencing an accident as a result of impaired driving.
How Driving Impaired Affects Communities
Unfortunately, driving impaired has adverse effects on communities as a whole.
Higher crime rates: When more and more people are pulled over or convicted of driving impaired, it increases the crime rate for that area, even if they don’t see high levels of violent crime. This can prevent schools from receiving quality funding or neighborhoods from increasing in property value.
Insurance Premiums: While you might think insurance premiums are an individual effect of impaired driving, it’s actually a community one. When insurance companies calculate their rates, they also go by the probability someone will experience an accident or damage to their car in the places it sits the most. If there’s a high level of impaired driving in a neighborhood or city, then everyone’s car insurance premiums go up. This is a consequence most drivers don’t think of when they choose to drive impaired.
What You Can Do
There has been lots of evidence over the years that shows community-based programs focusing on alcohol reduction can decrease the amount of fatal impaired driving incidents. How can you get involved and ensure the safety of yourself and those around you this month?
Don’t drive impaired: In reality, it’s as simple as not driving impaired. Thankfully, restaurants in the state of Virginia have to stop serving alcohol at 10pm, and they have to shut down by midnight, meaning that you have at least two hours to sober up before driving home - or, call a cab, Uber or a friend to drive you home. Families and offices should also be limiting their holiday gatherings this year as a result of the pandemic, so you will have less of an opportunity to drink and drive.
Serve ‘mocktails’ at any small gatherings you have: Mocktails are fake cocktails. They typically contain the mixers used in cocktails, minus the alcohol. There are lots of different holiday mocktails you can serve at any of the small gatherings you might have with your quarantine pod this year. This will encourage others not to drink and drive, and you all can focus on having fun without alcohol this year!
Report unsafe drivers: If you’re driving home from work, the grocery store or the doctor’s office this month, don’t be afraid to call and report any unsafe drivers to 911. Diving impaired is an emergency, and it’s important that concerned citizens call and make those reports. You could save someone’s life! If it’s safe to do so, make sure you report the street you’re driving on, the make & model of the car as well as the license plate of the vehicle to dispatch when you call it in. This will help any officers responding to properly locate the vehicle and driver.
Impaired driving is dangerous, and it affects everyone. There are some simple things you can do to prevent impaired driving this month and every month in the future.