Perhaps the single most dangerous driving practice is driving while under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. Defensive driving techniques and knowledge of the rules of the road simply cannot compensate for the serious impairment of driving while under the influence. Impaired drivers endanger themselves and others, and they risk severe legal and financial consequences. Sober driving is among the most important factors of safe driving.

Alcohol and Driving

Everybody has probably heard the old slogan, "Alcohol and Driving Don’t Mix."

It's a slogan that is sadly and painfully true. You should never drive a vehicle or operate a vessel after drinking alcohol. Drinking and driving is dangerous because drinking or using drugs can substantially impair your judgment and reactions.

It has been shown by studies of crashes that the higher a driver's intoxication level, the more severe was their crash.

It has been estimated that on weekend nights one out of ten drivers is legally drunk, while only one in two thousand of these drivers is actually arrested for drunk driving.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Safety Counsel, drunk driving:

• Has killed two hundred thousand people in the United States during the past decade.
• Kills twenty thousand people each year.
• Kills over three hundred people every week.
• Kills one person every twenty-five minutes.

According to AAA statistics, nearly seventeen thousand people died from alcohol related crashes in 1995, and one million people were injured -- one hundred and twenty five thousand of them permanently.

Over fifty percent of all highway crashes involving two or more cars are alcohol-related and over sixty-five percent of all single car crashes involved alcohol.

Thirty-six percent of all accidents with adult pedestrians involved an intoxicated pedestrian.

Driving Under the Influence (DUI) creates economic costs to American taxpayers of about twenty-four billion dollars per year. When drivers are intoxicated, the risk of causing an accident is six times greater than for non-drinkers.

DUI is the leading cause of death for Americans between sixteen and twenty-four years old.

One million teenagers in the United States are alcoholics. A person under the age of twenty-one is more physically susceptible to alcohol and can become an alcoholic in as little as six months. Sixty percent of people killed in drunk-driving accidents are in their teens, and nearly twenty thousand teenagers are killed annually because of drunk driving.

                                 If the Police Stop You

If the police have probable cause to stop you and suspect that you have been drinking or using drugs, they will ask you to take a breath or blood test. This test analyses the amount of alcohol and drugs in your body. Under implied consent laws, if you operate a motor vehicle on Virginia’s public roads, you agree to take a chemical test upon request.

You are required to take the test. If you refuse, your license may be immediately suspended for seven days and it may be suspended for one year, whether or not you are convicted of driving under the influence. If you are convicted of DUI, the suspension period for refusing the test will be added to the DUI revocation period.