Introduction
A person’s alcohol concentration in the body can easily be known. This is achieved by the determination of the blood alcohol concentration taken in by such a person. This involves the measurement of alcohol concentration in grams of alcohol per 100 millimeters of blood. When the women and men are exposed to the same quantities of alcohol at the same time then the concentration of the alcohol in women will be higher. However, even people of the same sex have different concentration of alcohol when tasted despite their drinking levels. A drug therefore is any substance that alters the normal functioning of the body most specifically the brain. In this case, it is a drug whether legal or illegal. When a traffic accident occurs, it can always be identified whether it is due to alcohol or not. This is achieved by testing the ethyl concentration of the drivers involved. There is a great need to determine the effects of alcohol in driving. As a driver is a very important person in the highway. This is because he is in charge of many lives at that particular moment and he may decide to harm them or not. A driver should always be sober while driving and maintain all the traffic rules. Driving safely should be the governing aspect in any driving. Many drivers all over the world have involved themselves in alcoholism. This is one of the major setbacks to safe driving on the roads. Alcohol has been tested to interrupt the person’s nervous system. The nervous system is the one that is responsible for the normal functioning of the body system. When the systems functioning are interrupted, then the results will not be good since the behavior of the person will automatically change. The change of the drivers’ behavior on the road will cause an abnormal condition since what he does is under the influence of alcohol. There is a need to determine what causes any accident to investigate whether it is due to alcoholism or any other and if yes then what are the effects of alcohol to the drivers.
Ethical Considerations
Various road accidents have been increasingly reported and several of which being attached to alcohol drinking by drivers. Drinking and driving has taken a serious stake has a public health and most seriously public safety concern. Alcohol reduces a person ability to drive safely. Recent surveys confirm that majority to almost all of the drivers who perish in road accidents test positive for drugs and more specifically high blood alcohol concentration (Knox, 2008).
Alcohol related accidents have caused extensive damages to the society. Economic and social effects have escalated to intolerable conditions necessitating for financial consideration in the formulation and making of budgets. In various years the average economic costs due to alcohol related accidents were estimated at $ 130,000,000, this was estimated in terms of lost resources in medical expenses, wages, premiums, and vehicle damages (Knox, 2008). These are resources, which could be saved or used in various sectors of economies.
The various effects of alcohol to drivers need to be understood in order to address the issue of accident related problems. Psychologists, medical practitioners, and law enforcing bodies need to understand the effects of alcohol on drivers in order to make a more informed judgment of drunkards on our roads. This then calls for extensive research.
Measurement (Hypothesis)
Alcoholism has several measurable effects to drivers. Alcohol drinking inefficient slows the working of the brain, such that the brain takes longer to react in receiving and processing information received by the eye or by any other common sense. This delays the instructions sending to eye muscles. Alcohol reduces the mental reactions by average of 20 times per second to the normal rate. In addition to this, it slows the capability of a person (drivers).
Alcohol impairs judgment on distant objects and darkness vision. Besides all these, alcohol weakens the aptitude to notice anything happening at the roadside. Overconfidence is another ill of alcohol as it concludes that persons are ready to pursue challenging situations. These various effects vary greatly with the degree of alcohol taken by a driver. Extent of alcohol taken by a driver or any other person can be determined by measuring blood alcohol content undertaken by using Breathalyzers test. The use of the test on blood alcohol concentration as a variable in deducing the effect of alcohol to the body functioning and performance, is due to the measurability of this factor. The different levels of intoxication are taken and measured against the occurrence of the above effects. From this inferences hypothesis are drawn;
Hypothesis (The above-mentioned are true effects of alcohol to drivers).
Null hypothesis (The above-mentioned are false to the effects of alcohol to drivers).
Note: The extent of alcohol intoxication should be considered.
Methods
Systematic review and analysis of academic papers presented since 2008 on the severe effects of alcohol on driving. This will include both dire and lasting effects of alcohol on the general performance of drivers. The academic papers should be selected in consideration to the uniqueness of the scientific techniques used in collection of data and taking into account the drinking habits of the targeted population. This will involve the extensive investigation of the methodology and the various scientific techniques employed in collection, analysis, reporting of data and presentation of data obtained from search papers.
In addition to the review of selected academic papers, a sample of 500 drivers, 400 of them driving commercial vehicles and the other sample population driving private/personal vehicles should be identified for repeated measuring of the consequences on psychometric duties of drivers after night drinking. In the selection of the two groups, age should be taken into consideration as a factor importance. A population of youth drivers and old should be half-half. This will involve a thorough investigation on the effect of alcohol on the skills and general performance of the selected drivers before driving and after task. The sample size is set at this limit due to economic reasons (Knox, 2008).. To execute and make it for a research is expensive and time consuming. Furthermore, this research is sensitive in that to carry such blood tests to people in motion is challenging and difficult.
A questionnaire should be developed for obtaining the information on the specific personal feeling of drivers and what they think of their driving skills after taking alcohol. In addition to that, the quantity of alcohol and content taken by the specific person under investigation should be taken into account. The questionnaire should employ a specific probing technique to ensure collection of relevant and quality data. Personalized interview and probing of experts on alcohol psychological effects need to be well thought out for getting expertise information on the topic of research (Lankford, 2007).
The data collected should be recorded on tables against the blood alcohol content.
Ethical considerations (Conclusion)
The extensive examination on the conditional sound effects of alcohol on driving skills and performance aims at identifying the serious alcoholism of drivers. Earlier research have proven to depth that drunkenness and safe driving are two antagonistic things that could not be underestimated due to the fact proven by statistics that majority of accidents are associated with acute intoxication. The effects of alcohol on drivers are proving by statistics that, a quarter of them prove that performance is impaired at 0.04g/dl and tracking and attention are impaired at 0.01g/dl. Other measurable factors are impaired at below 0.01g/dl. However the there exists no level at which blood alcohol content does not impair judgment (Sandler, 2010) .
However, the results showed also that there exist after drink effect of alcohol drinking on driving. Hangover and its general alcohol drinking causes impaired vision, reduced reactions to things, reduced concentration, and vigilance to an extent of making the driver even slip at the driving wheel of a car. In addition, alcoholism makes it difficult for one to understand sensory information received by the eye. Hangover in its specific way leads to drowsy and more particularly feeling more relaxed.
Generally, alcohol impairs the human mind to different levels of blood alcohol content causing rates of difficulty in doing various duties. For instance, causing the driver to fall asleep while driving and making him or her to be over confident and thus taking risks in addition to having difficulty in taking one and straight direction on highway lanes while concentrating to the other traffic around him or her. This in conclusion, sums up to breaking the rules and regulations of the highways or traffic.
However, every profession has its ethical considerations which are worthy while making an allowance for while in duty. It is lack of professionalism for every person to break the rules of the land, so is the driver who not only breaks the law but also risks the lives of many other road users. Ethics and professionalism should always be uphold and taken into the account to the later.
Recommendations
The rule of law and may be self-integrity in the side of the driver is will be effective in reducing this severe effects of alcohol to the drivers and the entire road using public. First, a minimum age for every driver should be set at twenty-one years of age. This will result in reduction in fatal accidents caused by reckless young alcohol abusing youth. As various academic research papers have indicated that the young population using the road in the name of drivers are fatal when drunk than the aged population.
Blood alcohol level taken by road users should be set at a level below 35mg per 100ml. The critical level alcoholism that can cause impairment below this good level. Alcohol is an addictive good and regulations have failed to control but can be tried by imposing taxes on alcohol production in addition to imposing serious charges to the traffic law offenders especially when they are drunk.
References
Knox, J. M. (2008). Drinking, driving & drugs. New York: Chelsea House.
Lankford, R. D. (2007). Alcohol abuse. Detroit: Greenhaven Press.
Mattila, M., & International Congress on Pharmacology (2012). Alcohol, drugs, and driving: Satellite symposium of the 6th International Congress of Pharmacology on Alcohol, Drugs and Driving, Helsinki, July 26-27, 2011. Basel: Karger.
Sandler, M., & British Association for Psychopharmacology (2010). Psychopharmacology of alcohol. New York: Raven Press.
