Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Rod Williams School of Drunk Driving.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Tonight is the night of the year when more inexperienced drunk drivers will be on the road than any other night of the year except for New Year's eve.  Today is St. Patrick's day in which we celebrate Ireland, its people, and its culture. It does seem kind of insulting to the Irish that the way to celebrate Irishness is to get drunk on green beer, but a lot of people will be drinking green beer tonight.

A lot of people will have their judgment impaired and think they are perfectly capable of driving  but they will be drunk. Some of them will get arrested. Getting arrested can be costly and humiliating. It can ruin your life. You can go to jail and loose your license.

Getting arrested for drunk driving is only one reason not to drive drunk.  The most important reason is you could kill yourself or someone else. Don't drive drunk. Don’t do it.

If you overindulge, there are alternatives to driving drunk. The Davidson County Sheriff's Office is offering free, Sober Rides to help prevent drunken driving and help people get home.  This program is available from 9 p.m tonight to 1 a.m. Wednesday. There are two locations for getting a ride. One is in the Gulch at 11th Avenue and Pine Street and the other is in Midtown at Division Street and Lyle Avenue. This is the 12th year the sheriff's office has offered free rides on St. Patrick's day. Last year, 85 volunteers took nearly 300 people home on St. Patrick's Day.

Also, since this time last year, in addition to the sober ride program,  the opportunities for alternative transportation has greatly increased in the Nashville area.  Lyft and Uber are great services. You page a ride using your phone. Do to that you must first download an app. Don't wait until your drunk to try to download the app.

I would suggest leaving the car at home and take Uber both ways. I am sure they will be busy tonight. I don't know if there will be enough Uber and Lyft vehicles on the road to meet demand tonight, but a great thing about Uber and Lyft is that the supply expands with demand on a moments notice. When a lot of people want the service, the price goes up and people who may not have wanted to work to earn $20 an hour might want to work if they can earn $50 in an hour so more drivers will get on the road as demand and price increases. When peak demand periods pass, prices drop. So, if you are using Uber and want to leave the party immediately after the bars close and the price is outrageous, wait an hour and the price will drop. If it cost you $6 to get to the party and $25 to get home, that may seem like a lot of money, but compared to the cost of getting arrested for drunk driving it is minimal.

If you are not going to rely on a commercial service such as a cab or Uber, then have a designated driver. Pick the designated driver before you start drinking. I prefer being the designated drinker, but someone needs to be the designated driver. If at a friends house and you have had too much to drink, stay the night.

Having said all of this however, I know that there are going to be a lot of people who will be driving tonight that will not think they are too drunk to drive but will have had a sufficient amount of adult beverage that they could register drunk even though they don’t think they are drunk.

I myself have probably driven many times when I would have registered drunk had I been stopped. I am not by any means advocating driving drunk, but if you are driving impaired I am providing these tips to help you increase your chances of getting home safely without getting arrested.

This  guide from the Rod Williams School of Drunk Driving is provided  to help you improve your drunk driving skills.

(1) Know that you don’t have to be “drunk” to register DUI. You do not have to be sloppy, falling down drunk to register as DUI. If you think you should not drive then by all means don’t. Often you will not know if you are drunk or not, so unless you know exactly how much you have had to drink and whether or not that would constitute drunk driving, then assume you are technically drunk. You do not have to appear intoxicated or have any of the symptoms that we think of as “drunk” to have a Blood Alcohol Content that legally makes you guilty of Driving Under the Influence. If you drink and you drive you have probably driven “drunk.”

(2) Track your consumption and don’t have “one for the road.” Some people will go out tonight with the intention of getting drunk; others will accidentally get drunk.  If  tonight you are having dinner with friends and you have a pre-dinner cocktail and wine with dinner and an after dinner drink, you might register drunk. Try to keep your alcohol consumption to a level that falls below the BAC limit.
On occasion I like to go to Lower Broadway to listen to live music and party. If I have 8, 12-ounce beers in a four-hour period I should have a BAC of about .068, however if I have 9 beers in four hours that means I have a BAC of .085 and am legally drunk. “One for the road” could put me over the limit. Actually, I seldom have eight beers in a four hour period, but it has happened.

A female can drink less than a male and a slender person can drink less than a heavy person. For a 115 pound female, three glasses of wine in two hours is drunk. Don’t try to keep up with the other people in your party. Know your limit. Skip a round. Drink slower. Some people assume that wine is less inebriating than tequila shots. That is not so. A 12-ounce beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1 ounces of 100 proof distilled spirits have the same impact on an individual's BAC level.

Here is a calculator that will give you guidance on how much alcohol you can consume and an estimate of BAC. Please be aware that this is only a guide. If you are drinking on an empty stomach, your BAC may be higher than indicated in the calculator.

(3) Plan your trip. Point your car in the direction of home.  A good car should be able to find its way home, with a little help.  Avoid places where the police might see you. When I go to the honkytonk strip on lower Broadway to party, I never park on Broadway. I live on the south side of town, so I park a block or two south of Broadway on one of the one-way streets heading south. This means I do not have to circle a block and be concerned about traffic lights and stop signs. The less exposed one is to the police the less chance one has of getting caught. It is worth parking four or five blocks away to reduce your exposure.

(4) Be aware that you are impaired. If you didn’t keep track of how much you drank then assume you are may have had enough to register drunk and use your best drunk-driving skills. "Thinking" skills, like perceiving and evaluating risks, or processing information are not easily visible to outside observers, but they are the first skills to be adversely affected by alcohol. Be aware of this.

(5) Stop the Party. You are having a good time. You are joking and singing and laughing. You hate
to end the party, but if there is any chance that you are driving with an elevated BAC, then stop the party. Say, “OK folks, we need to straighten up. I need your help in getting us home.” Don’t sing or engage in distracting conversation. Turn off the radio. Don’t talk on the cell phone. Give driving your undivided attention. Don’t let anyone in the car have an open container. You may be perfectly capable of driving, but if a drunk passenger is yelling out the window, the police may stop the car and give you a drunk driving test. The moment you get in the car the party is over.

(6) Check the checklist. Have a mental checklist. You don’t want to get stopped because you failed to use your turn signal. I was once stopped by the police on lower Broadway and forced to take a Breathalyzer. I knew I had only had two beers in a two-hour period so I was not concerned. The reason they stopped me is that I had not tuned on my headlights as I pulled out into the street. The downtown area is well lit and this was just an oversight. The police are looking for excuses to stop you; don’t give them one. Seat belts? Check. Adjust the mirror? Check. Turn off the radio? Check. Turn on the headlights? Check.

(7) Concentrate; pay attention. Be aware of your driving. Don’t relax. Keep both hands on the wheel. Don’t be distracted. Don't answer the phone. If you feel you must answer the phone, safely pull off the road. Don't even engage in conversation.  Make sure you do not weave. Are you staying within the lines? Drive just below the speed limit. Don’t tailgate. Pay attention to the car in front of you. If they put on their brakes, notice it. If you are approaching an intersection with a traffic light, pay close attention. Plan that traffic light stop. Don’t run a yellow light.

(8) Use your co-pilot. Ask the person in the passengers seat to help you drive. Ask them to tell you if you weave or tailgate or go too fast. Make them pay attention to your driving.


(9) If you get stopped. Unless you are certain that you have had less than the number of drinks it would take to raise your BAC level to the .08 level, then common wisdom holds that it is a good idea to refuse the breathalyzer test. It generally is more difficult to convict a driver of drunk driving if no chemical tests are taken.

This is an additional tip suggested by a reader of this blog:

(10) It you are seeing double, close one eye.

I have never been arrested for drunk driving but I admit I have been guilty of it. I guess I have been lucky. As a young adult I was more often guilty of it than I have been as an older adult. Nevertheless, from time to time, I still have probably technically met the blood alcohol level for being drunk.

Stay safe. Drive careful. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

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