1997 Oldsmobile Achieva Owner's Manual - Page 157

Drunken Driving Death and injury associatedwith drinking and driving is a nationaltragedy. It's the number one contributorto the highway death toll, claiming thousandsof victims every year. Alcohol affects four things that anyone needs to drive a vehicle: Judgment MuscularCoordination Vision Attentiveness. Police recordsshow that almosthalf of all motor vehicle-related deaths involvealcohol. In most cases, these deathsare the resultof someone who was drinking and driving. In recent years, some 17,000annual motor vehicle-related deaths have been associated the use with of alcohol, with more than 300,000 people injured. Many adults -- by some estimates, nearly half the adult population -- choose neverto drink alcohol, so they never drive after drinking. For persons under 2 1, it's against thelaw in every U.S. state to drink alcohol. There aregood medical, psychological and developmental reasons for these laws. The obvious way to solve thishighway safety problem is for people never to drink alcohol then drive. But and what if people do? How much is "too much" the if driver plans to drive? It's a lot less than many might think. Although it depends on each person and situation, on here is some general lnformation the problem. The Blood Alcohol Concentration(BAC) of someone who is drinkingdepends upon four things: The amount of alcohol consumed The drinker's body weight The amount of food that is consumed before and during drinking The length of time it has taken the drinker to consume the alcohol. According to the American Medical Association, a 180-lb. (82 kg) person who drinks three 12-ounce (355 ml) bottles of beer in an hour will end up with a BAC of about 0.06 percent. Theperson would reach the same BAC by drinking three 4-ounce (120 ml) glasses of wine or threemixed drinks if each had 1- 1/2 ounces (45 ml) of a liquor like whiskey, gin or vodka.