Why does alcohol effect your driving?
Alcohol has been consumed the world over since time immemorial by people of all ages, ranging from teenagers to the old. Putting aside the temporary sense of wellness it provides to the drinkers, it is also one of the major factors behind road accidents nowadays. Alcohol acts as a depressant for our nervous system which severely impairs our driving skills. It reduces concentration, coordination, balance and ability to multi task things. The higher the concentration of alcohol in our blood, the more it hampers the proper working of the brain.
The brain, with the help of its various parts, controls crucial functions like reasoning, vision, movement, reflexes, heart beat and the respiratory system. On the other side too much concentration of blood alcohol content (BAC) severely obstructs these functions leading to loss of judgment while driving. The person under the influence of alcohol cannot easily judge the distance between two vehicles, cannot apply brakes when instantly needed, ignores the road signs, traffic instructions and pedestrians etc.
To define it more clearly, we have to understand the physiological changes which alcohol induces in our body. Our body parts receive messages from the brain to do different things with the help of the nerves. Both the brain and the nerves consist of neurons that are the real carriers of the instructions back and forth between the brain and body parts. Neurons are placed with a gap between them called synapses and the neurotransmitters move with the message across this gap to the next neuron. Alcohol specifically affects the synapses part of the system and reduces the efficiency and speed of the neurotransmitters to deliver the message back and forth. Consequently, the overly drunk person is unable to drive in a straight line, speaks with a slur and is slow to react in an emergency situation on the road.
It is rightly said that drinking and driving is a fatal combination and to substantiate this claim the facts speak for themselves.
Category: Addictions, Health