By April Sears

Your friend invited you to their place over the weekend. Since you didn’t have anything else to do at the time, you agreed to come. So you drove your way there, and they welcomed you with a can of beer. But then only after you’ve already finished your beer did you suddenly remember that you’ve taken some over the counter medication hours before you headed over to your friend’s place. To avoid being caught up in potential legal trouble as you make your way back home despite being under the influence of both alcohol and drugs, you would want to know some of the things that happen in your mind when you’re intoxicated while driving which are as follows:

Your mind functions slower than usual which can lead you to have a delayed reaction when faced with a dangerous situation while on the road.

Driving a vehicle requires you to have the presence of mind so that you can make snappy decisions and avoid anything that can put you in harm’s way.

• However, consuming alcohol, drugs, or even both can cause your innate reflexes to become stunted.

• If an oncoming vehicle approaches right in front of you, you might have a difficult time maneuvering your vehicle away from it and thus cause a vehicular accident to happen.

Your ability to gauge your driving speed as well as your distance from other vehicles, people and objects become significantly reduced.

Estimating both your driving speed and distance from other vehicles, people, and objects are essential as you don’t want to collide onto something at all.

• You might be going over the designated speed limit on the road where you’re driving which can lead you to get charged with speeding too aside from DUI and put you in even more legal trouble than you already have while driving in an intoxicated state.

• You might also think that you’re far enough from a vehicle, person, or object when in fact, you’re very near them that you’ll only notice it once you had already hit them.

You start thinking that you’re driving better compared to your usual when in fact you’re not.

Alcohol and drugs make you shed any inhibitions that you may have which can lead you to gain a false sense of confidence that you can do things which you don’t normally do.

• As a result, you might be of the mindset that you can still drive your way back home even after having taken alcohol or drugs.

• You might even try to pull off a couple of driving stunts that you wouldn’t even attempt to make when you’re not intoxicated.

You’re unable to keep your eyes on the road.

Driving also relies greatly on having a sense of focus and not being easily distracted by other things.

• Taking alcohol or drugs strips you of any focus that you may have as a driver when you’re not intoxicated.

• You might suddenly find your vision getting too shifty that you can’t spend at least five seconds looking straight at the road where you’re driving and watching for any pedestrians who are crossing that same road.

You’re feeling sleepy or exhausted while behind the wheel.

If you’ve been taking medications or drinking alcohol, you might initially feel euphoric and awake. But that feeling doesn’t last long as your energy suddenly starts to take a nosedive, thus leading you to feel drowsy which you wouldn’t ever want to happen while driving your vehicle.

• As much as you don’t want to yawn and close your eyes while behind the wheel, your brain lets you involuntarily do them anyway which can lead to you to experience a blackout episode and miss seeing something that you might hit or another vehicle that can hit you. You might even find yourself switching lanes too often instead of keeping your vehicle in the lane where it’s supposed to be.

• The United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has even estimated that more than one million vehicular accidents happen each year all because of drowsy driving.

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested more than one million people in 2015 who were found to have been driving under the influence of both alcohol and drugs. You wouldn’t want to be part of that statistic as you simply can’t afford to go to prison at all. Thus, you should take some time to read the things mentioned above that happen in your mind when you’re intoxicated while driving so that you can save yourself the trouble of being arrested for driving under the influence after which you’ll have to hire a lawyer to get you out of jail. If ever you’ve taken alcohol or drugs, you should leave your vehicle at home and take public transport instead. If you want more in-depth information on the legalities of the subject, please click here.

April Sears

April Sears has been a law writer for more than two decades, and she is currently working on her next piece. She also writes pieces on law topics for the common reader. April is family woman, and she loves spending her free time with her family.