3 December 2013
New study into alcohol and driving
produces surprising results
If you thought that waiting
until you felt ready to drive after having a few drinks was
a good idea, new findings from the University of Waikato’s
Traffic and Road Safety (TARS) Research Group might surprise
you.
Associate Professor Samuel Charlton, from the
University of Waikato’s School of Psychology, recently
completed a large research project showing that drivers are
extremely poor judges of their own sobriety and that the
same amount of alcohol in the blood can have different
effects depending on how long it’s been since you started
drinking.
In the study conducted by Dr Charlton and Dr
Nicola Starkey, also from the School of Psychology,
participants consumed drinks of varying alcohol quantities
while their driving skills were tested in a simulator.
Participants were not told how much alcohol was in their
drinks.
“In general, alcohol affects many areas of
cognitive performance, including the ability to judge how
sober you are,” said Dr Charlton.
“After a while, the
participants felt like they had ‘sobered up’ enough to
drive, even though they had as much alcohol in their blood
as before. The really dangerous thing is that although they
felt better, their driving and cognitive performance was
significantly worse than before.”
The finding that
driving performance actually gets worse over a period of
time, even though the amount of alcohol in the bloodstream
stays the same, is called acute protracted error.
Although acute protracted error has been reported
previously with high levels of alcohol, the research by Drs
Charlton and Starkey shows that it can happen even with
moderate amounts of alcohol, such as a blood alcohol
concentration (BAC) of 0.05, the new legal limit for New
Zealand drivers as of 2014.
The research project was
produced for the government to assist in the decision to
lower the legal limit for New Zealand drivers from the
current level of 0.08 BAC to 0.05 BAC.
The project follows
on from a series of studies conducted by Dr Charlton and his
colleagues at TARS, including self-explaining roads and
driver awareness, the use of cell-phones while driving, and
a nationwide novice driver training and education
programme.
TARS is an independent provider of research
based in the University of Waikato’s Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences. Their research has contributed to the
improvement in the safety of drivers and roads in New
Zealand and internationally. TARS has state of the art
research facilities, including the most advanced driving
simulator laboratory in New Zealand.
ends
.