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Ways to prevent drinking and driving
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Random Breath Testing (RBT) is a system used in Australia by state and federal policing agencies to measure the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of drivers. To do so, police officers use an apparatus known as a breathalyser, which are able to determine BAC through breath alcohol concentration. If the blood alcohol content of a driver is over the legal limit, they will experience penalties. The usage of breathalysers has become an efficient and reliable form of testing BAC on the roads, without the need for a blood test. RBT has succeeded in making Australians further aware and responsible for their alcohol consumption, but overestimation of their driving abilities and incapability to properly weigh important factors, has made RBT less effective.
Presently, there are three main types of breathalysers available, the Semiconductor Oxide, Fuel Cell, and Spectrophotometer breathalysers (How Does a Breath Analyser Work?, n.d.). Each of these three function slightly differently, and are reliable to their own degree. Regardless, each contains a mouthpiece in which the participant breathes into. However, policing agencies often use the Fuel Cell Breathalyser, which also contains a system of photocells and two vials. The reason that the presence of alcohol can be tested through an individual’s breath is because it is volatile, and once it is consumed, it flows in the bloodstream across the alveoli and is evaporated into the alveolar air. Thus, once the alveolar air is exhaled when the individual breathes into a mouthpiece, any presence of alcohol will be detected in the vial. Upon entering one vial, the breath sample is bubbled through a mixture of sulphuric acid (8H2SO4), silver nitrate (AgNO3), and potassium dichromate (2K2Cr2O72-), wh...
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... [online] Available at: http://www.breathalyzers.com/how-breathalyzers-work [Accessed: 21 Feb 2014].
Harcourt Health. 2013. 4 Medical Conditions That Affect The Validity Of Breathalyzers. [online] Available at: http://www.harcourthealth.com/4-medical-conditions-that-affect-the-validity-of-breathalyzers/ [Accessed: 23 Feb 2014].
Mercier, L. n.d. The Chemistry Behind the Breathalyzer. [PowerPoint slides] Available through: University of Waterloo orchard.uwaterloo.ca/Courses/Chem323/Pstrs_W'04/Breathalyzer.ppt [Accessed: 21 Feb 2014].
Prabhakar, T., Lee, S. and Job, R. 2006. Factors involved in the long term benefits of Random Breath Testing in NSW. [e-book] p. 2, 3, 10. Available through: Australian Government Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/1993/pdf/RBT_NSW.pdf [Accessed: 23 Feb 2014].
It is a tragic truth: About 10,000 lives are lost in the United States because of drunk driving each year. Alcohol is wildly known as one of the main reasons of causing social security issue. Small amount can make people feel relaxed, but bigger amount could make them loss their coordination, get feeling of confusion and disorientation, and significantly slowed their reaction time. On average, one person dies every hour because of alcoholic traffic accident in United State. Therefore, the NTSB put out a recommendation last May that the legal blood alcohol content (BAC) level for drivers should be lowered from the current level of .08% to .05%. But for several reasons, we shouldn’t lower the criterion on blood alcohol content.
The newly proposed impaired driving laws would allow police to demand a breath sample up to two hours after you get home if you are suspected of drunk driving. These laws violate individual rights as police no longer need to have reasonable suspicion and can simply demand that you provide a breath or saliva sample that proves there is no alcohol in their system even if you have already arrived home. Though these laws appear to violate constitutional rights, they are very liberal. The main reason drunk driving laws are in effect is to protect other people on the road. The drive is making their own decision and must deal with the consequences that come along with it, however the people around them could be severely impacted by their choices. That is where the
A breathalyzer is a device used for determining the content of alcohol from a sample of one’s breath. Robert Borkenstein invented it in 1954 while serving as an instructor in alcohol intoxication to find a different solution to practical problems associated with sampling blood for law enforcement purposes (SRInstitute). Because of the hazards associated with drinking and driving, laws need to be stricter about abusing alcohol and driving at the same time. People should have to take a mandatory class in high school or in college about the dangers of drinking and driving and the effects it can take on you or on others if you cause a wreck. To prevent fatal accidents while driving under the influence, all cars should have a built in breathalyzer.
...e that prevents drunk driving offenders from operating motor vehicles while intoxicated by requiring a breath test from the driver before the vehicle will start.
Law enforcements around the US have worked extremely hard to prevent drinking and driving. Checkpoints were established to help prevent DUIs. In Sedalia, for example, mostly they are on “big nights” such as prom, Fourth of July, and graduation. A DUI checkpoint is when police officers block the road with barriers or vehicles. Before being a loud to go through the checkpoint, the driver must have a conversation with the officer and present his or her driver’s license. If the driver is shown to have signs of drinking alcohol, the officer can give the driver a sobriety test or a Breathalyzer.
“Drink the first. Sip the second slowly. Skip the third. The speedway ends at the cemetery” (Rockne). Every day, almost 30 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. This amounts to one death every 48 minutes. The annual cost of alcohol related crashes totals more than 51 billion. In Recent discussions of drunk driving, a controversial issue has been whether the driving while intoxicated laws should be increased due to the amount tax payers are paying for drunk driving crashes. On the one hand. Some argue that the driving laws for driving drunk should remain the same and not change. From this perspective the laws about driving under the influence should greatly increase to be stricter, this will help decrease the death rate per year in the United States. On the other hand, however others argue that the laws about driving while drunk are already too strict and should remain unchanged. In sum, then, the issue is whether the laws about driving drunk should be greatly increased to be more effective, or remain unchanged. Because drunk driving can result in unnecessary and premature deaths, unsafe roadways, billions of dollars spent on taxpayers due to DUI’S, and losing a loved one. Drunk driving laws should be altered to be more efficient.
Driving under the influence is measured by a person’s blood alcohol level (BAC). BAC is determined by the concentration of alcohol in the bloodstream. Individual counties and states have their own legal level on blood alcohol percentages that they measure a person’s BAC to determine if they are intoxicated while behind the wheel. “Everywhere in the United States it is illegal to drive with a BAC of 0.08% or higher” (DUI Foundation).
Drunk Driving is defined as: Operating a motor vehicle while one 's blood alcohol content is above the legal limit set by statute, which supposedly is the level at which a person cannot drive safely. State statutes define the legal limit to be between .08 and .10 depending on what state you’re in. Every 51 minutes in America, someone is killed in a drunk driving crash(MADD). That equates to 27 people every day. Which comes to a total of at least 9,855 deaths in a year. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 32% of fatal car crashes involve an intoxicated driver or pedestrian (MADD). As of right now, in society the total number of drunk driving accidents is slowly but surely increasing and if nothing is done about it, it’ll result in a tragic amount of deaths and injuries. Drunk drivers are extremely dangerous not just to oneself, but to society as well. That is why one serious solution to this societal epidemic is to create a portion of the driving test where drivers will be required to be at least ten beers deep and while drunk they must drive through a set of
Drunk driving has been an increasing problem for many years. One issue that contributes to this is that in the United States it is actually legal to drive with a certain alcohol percentage. The blood alcohol limit is 0.8 percent (Drunk Driving). This means that a person may drive legally as long as they have a blood alcohol percentage of 0.8 percent or under. However, even at a percentage of 0.3 there may be some impairment of alertness and concentration (Drunk Driving). Driving requires fast reflexes that may be impaired at a 0.5 percent blood alcohol level but a person with this level of intoxication is not legally drinking and driving. Many people are arrested for drunk driving. In 2009, more than 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving while under the influence (Drunk Driving). In addition, “an average drunk driver has driven drunk 80 times before their first arrest” (Get Involved). Therefore, there were a minimum of 112 million accounts of drunk driving in 2009 alone. Drunk drivers also cause an increasing number of deaths. Drunk drivers in the United States c...
This form of testing is used for determining if an individual is inebriated or not. James and Nordby (2009) stated that an equilibrium exists between alcohol in the bloodstream and alcohol in the lung such that, on average, the concentration of blood alcohol is 2100 times greater than the concentration of breath alcohol (p. 63). Since this equilibrium exists, one can measure the breath alcohol and infer the corresponding alcohol concentration in the bloodstream (James & Nordby, 2009 p. 63). An advantage of this form of testing is that it can be conducted without drawing a blood sample and testing it. This allows personnel such as police officers to test individuals on the spot versus having to take someone in and draw a blood sample and wait for results to come
Portman, M., et al. “Profile of a Drunk Driver and Risk Factors of Drunk Driving.Finding in Roadside Testing in the Province of Uusimaa in Finland 1990-2008.” Forensic Science International (Online) 231.1 (2013): 20-7. ProQuest. Web. 26 Nov. 2013
Driving under the influence is one of the most common and dangerous situations in which anyone can be or be placed. Drinking and driving is a serious offence that can cause someone to be physically harm or even killed. Not only are you putting yourself at risk but you are also risking the lives of passengers in the car as well as any other car and occupants sharing the road with you. Many people believe that increasing fines for drunk driving offenders will play a compelling role in cutting down the occurrences of driving under the influence. However, while harsher DUI laws will look effective on paper, they will not make a significant step in the fight against drunk driving. Although there is a law enforced for drinking and driving in the
The misuse of alcohol is an issue prevalent all throughout Australia and is something all levels of the Government struggle to overcome. According to the AMA (Australian Medical Association), “In 2003, alcohol was the risk factor responsible for the greatest burden of disease and injury in Australian males under the age of 45, and is the second largest cause of drug-related deaths and hospitalisations in Australia after tobacco”. This showed the dangerous impact alcohol was having on Australians and helped push the Australian Government to tighten laws up about alcohol. In this essay, two Australian initiatives will be evaluated, the increase of taxation and pricing for alcohol, and secondly, the introduction of precautionary alcohol advertisements.
Alere is non-invasive, requires only a small sample taken from subject’s mouth and can accurately detect the presence of up to seven state-altering substances. As part of proposed “impaired driving laws improvement” initiative, Ottawa has announced it will give police access to such devices sometime before marijuana becomes legal. Already, many are heavily opposing new measures and want to know how these devices will react to someone who is a regular marijuana user but is not under the influence at the time of screening. Luckily for those concerned, the saliva sample will only be required if the driver either fails Standardized Field Sobriety Test (SFST) or officer smells the odor of marijuana on the driver. In the unlikely event that officer makes a bad judgment call, drug-detecting devices such as Alere have a relatively short detection window of up to three days. Furthermore, the government has put forth minimum threshold levels that are scientifically designed to target only users who are affected at the time of the test. Lastly, blood samples are taken only in extreme cases where an individual fails all other tests, results of which are used as a determining factor before one is
Many people in the United States enjoy a drink of their favorite alcoholic beverage. It could be a nice ice cold beer after a hard day of work or going to the bar and enjoying a few shots or mixed drinks with friends. Drinking alcohol is a common way to mingle with friends and take the edge off a difficult day. However, there are dangers involved with alcohol since it does dampen the body’s ability to cope with new information. Alcohol becomes a poison to the body when consumed in large quantities. The biggest danger is not to the driver after they become inebriated, but comes to anyone the drunk driver comes in contact with. A sober person can be dangerous just by being distracted, but a drunk driver’s ability to cope with changing situations and distractions is one of the biggest hazards on today’s roads. Some individuals believe that they are not as impaired as what they are led to believe from government ads and the many videos that show what can happen to someone who is drinking and driving. Although, there are many policies in place to advocate against drunk driving, there are those who would endanger themselves and others with their thoughtless actions when they jump into the driver’s seat of a vehicle. Drinking and driving should never be combined because a person who has been drinking does not have the ability to use all mental faculties unimpaired, many people have been killed, injured, or psychologically hurt by a drunk driver, many men and women do not know the difference weight and gender have on the body’s ability to process alcohol, and the financial and legal trouble that is awaiting for those convicted by a DUI.