Home > 40% of drivers take ‘morning after’ risk.

[Irish Examiner] , Murray, Niall 40% of drivers take ‘morning after’ risk. (17 Dec 2012)

External website: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/40-of-drivers...

Men and younger drivers are more likely to risk driving under the influence the morning after drinking, a study by AA Ireland has found. It also shows almost one in seven people have taken a lift from someone they know or suspected was over the limit in the past year.

Young men aged up to 24 were more than twice as likely to have taken a lift from a drink-driver than other groups.

With Garda checkpoints operating day and night in a Christmas enforcement campaign, participants were also asked if they had driven ‘the morning after night before’, unsure if they were over the limit.

While 40% have done so, three-quarters had only done so rarely. Just 2% did so regularly, and about a dozen did so every day.

However, the numbers were reversed when the answers of younger drivers are taken on their own, with 60% of those aged 17-to-24 having taken the ‘morning- after’ risk. Almost 45% of men had done so, compared to just 35% or females.

More than 70% of young men and half of young women have taken the risk in the last year.

On a county level, the highest percentage of respondents in Wicklow (22%), Louth (19%), Kilkenny (17%), Longford (17%) and Meath (17%) in that order admitted that they had gotten in a car with a driver they knew had drunk more than they should have.

Another concern the AA is highlighting which it feels is often underestimated is the danger of driving with a bad hangover. 40% of those polled by AA Motor Insurance stated that they had run the risk of driving “the morning after the night before” within the last year while unsure if their blood alcohol level had returned to within the legally permissible limit. Yet again this figure was higher among the 17-24 year olds polled with 59% stating they had done so.


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