Statistics show that 60% of car accidents are related to alcohol. Car accidents are now considered as the highest killers on the highway and most of the perpetrators are aging from 16 to 25 years old. Drunken drivers no longer follow traffic signs. The disrupt traffic and speed through traffic lights. When chased by police cars, they enjoy the chase and become reckless. These results in injuries and death of their passengers, the people travelling in other cars, bystanders and pedestrians. They can also harm others be damaging homes and properties.
Drinking heavily makes a person’s behaviour irritating and repulsive to people with him or around him. He makes enemies with his own friends or with strangers. He starts damaging properties like throwing bottles and chairs. What makes it worse is, if he carries a weapon with him, he starts firing his firearm, aimlessly.
How alcohol abuse harms or kills bystanders
- Alcohol is a depressant. It slows down a person’s motor responses. He cannot respond to the normal demands of driving.
- Drinking too much affects drinkers’ ability to think clearly. More often they misinterpret the actions of others as threatening to them. That is why they pick a fight merely because they think a person is staring at them. Friends are dragged into a drunken fight which may result to injuries or death of innocent people.
- Alcohol sparks the adrenalin in the body causing the person to be daring and reckless. When he is driving, he likes to race with other cars resulting in car accidents. Bystanders and other car drivers get involve in the accident. His passengers, those travelling in other vehicles and pedestrians are injured or die as a result of his reckless driving. Some of victims of reckless driving by a drunken driver are school children.
- When an alcohol abuser drinks to overcome depression, it only worsens his feelings and makes him irritable and angry. His behavior changes and he considers everyone as his enemy. He hurls insults to everyone around him thus his behavior irritates those around him and a fight could start.
The consequences of an alcoholic’s behavior can be very costly. It can cause him his life and the life of innocent bystanders. He can face legal actions which will deplete the financial resources of his family. It can send him to jail for the rest of his life.