Imagine if you had to tell a family that their child was never coming home again...because a driver had a few too many drinks and they were too lazy to get a taxi? How would you feel if it was your child? Your brother, your parent, your best friend? Now imagine that you're the one who had a few drinks and thought...Home isn't too far. I'll make it without getting busted. While on the back streets worrying if the booze bus will catch you, you hit someone. How do you live with that for the rest of your life?DRIVING while hungover may be as dangerous as getting behind the wheel when drunk.
But in a frightening twist, you’re not likely to care about your shoddy driving skills the day after a night on the grog.
New Australian research into the cause and effects of hangovers also shows how sick you feel the day after drinking can be determined by your genes, with some people more genetically predisposed to bad hangovers than others.
The studies at Swinburne’s Centre for Human Psychopharmacology — conducted in collaboration with international experts — promises to change the way we think about driving after drinking.
“Research by some of my colleagues in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands ... found that driving impairment is equivalent when hungover to driving with a BAC above the legal driving limit,” Sarah Benson of Swinburne said.
One of the criteria for someone being classified as “having a hangover” , was that they had a zero, or very close to zero, blood alcohol concentration , she said.
“Otherwise we would be measuring the effects of residual alcohol and not of a hangover ,” she said.
“When people are hungover , they are definitely blowing under the legal limit, but their driving is
Road safety chief at the TAC, Samantha Cockfield, said impairment from alcohol could last for a long time after drinking had stopped.
“If we don’t feel like we are OK to drive, the chances are we aren’t ,” she said.
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