1994 GMC Suburban Owner's Manual - Page 162

Defensive Driving The best advice anyone can give about driving is: Drive defensively. Please startwith a very important safety device in your vehicle: Buckle up. (See "Safety Belts" in the Index.) Defensive driving really means "be ready for anything." On city streets, rural roads, or freeways, it means "always expect theunexpected." Assume thatpedestrians or other drivers aregoing to be careless and make mistakes. Anticipate what they might do. Be ready for their mistakes. Rear-end collisionsare about the most preventable of accidents. Yet they are common.Allow enough following distance. It's the best defensive driving maneuver, in bothcity and rural driving. You never know when the vehicle in front of you is going to brake or turn suddenly. Drunken Driving Death and injury associated with drinking and driving is a national tragedy. It's the number one contributorto the highway death toll, claiming thousands of victims every year. Alcohol takes away three things that anyone needs to drive a vehicle: 0 Judgment Muscular Coordination Vision Police records show that almost half of all motor vehicle-related deaths involve alcohol - a driver, a passenger or someone else, such as a pedestrian, had been drinking. In most cases, thesedeaths are the result of someone who was drinking and driving. About 20,000 motor vehicle-related deaths occur each year because of alcohol, and thousands of people are injured. Just how much alcohol is too much if a person plans to drive?Ideally, no one should drink alcohol and then drive. Butif one does, then what's "too much"? It can be a lot less than many might think. Although it depends on each person and situation, here is some general information on the problem. The Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of someone who is drinking depends upon four things: 0 How much alcohol is in the drink. The drinker's body weight. The amount of food that is consumed before and during drinking. The lengthof time it has taken thedrinker to consume the alcohol. 4-2