|
June
20, 2002:
How to Spot & Avoid Drunk Drivers
Interview
with Doug Thorburn, author of Get Out of the Way! How
to Identify & Avoid a Driver Under the Influence
Mike
Carruthers:
Drunk drivers cause accidents, so you should know how to spot
a drunk driver and get out of the way.
Doug
Thorburn:
If somebody's
tailgating, that's a 50% probability right there. That's a study
from the National Highway
Safety Transportation Administration.
Doug Thorburn,
author of the book Get Out of the Way! How to Identify and
Avoid a Driver Under the Influence.
You
start looking at behaviors in which you can see that somebody's
judgment is not very good and they're likely under the influence,
somebody tailgating, backing off, tailgating again, weaving
in and out of traffic. Not yielding the right of way shows a
45% probability of DUI. Just that one behavior!
It's estimated,
on average, 1 out of 50 vehicles is being driven by someone
under the influence. That average goes up on the evenings, and
way, way up on weekend evenings, perhaps to 1 out of 10.
I'd
be looking for someone speeding recklessly through traffic.
I'd be looking for someone multi-tasking. Addicts are always
in a hurry, so they're on a cell phone, they're smoking a cigarette,
they got the window down, and they're speeding in and out of
traffic. And they're making illegal turns and illegal lane changes,
things like that. You see a confluence of things, not just one
indicator. We all make U-turns; the fact is, though, that 35%
of illegal U-turns are done by DUIs. The person is under the
influence in 35% of situations in which there's an illegal U-turn.
At somethingyoushouldknow.net,
I'm Mike Carruthers, and that's "Something You Should Know".
|
|
|
