As if it were a kind of Dunning-Kruger of ethyl, people who are intoxicated with alcohol tend to think that they “control” more than they do. To the point that half underestimate their drunkenness so much that they risk committing offenses on the road.
This is what a new study published in Harm Reduction Journal, by a team of researchers from the University of Witten / Herdecke and the University of Cambridge.
Main causes of death
In the study, 90 students (mean age 24 years) participated in an experiment on two separate days. The participants were divided into two groups: a study group and a control group. Both groups consumed beer or wine or both until reaching a maximum breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) of 0.11%.
The research was carried out in Germany, where the legal limit of conduction is a BrAC of 0.05%. In the study group, participants were initially told that when they reached a BrAC of 0.05%, they would be switched from beer to wine or vice versa (although it was not explicitly explained that this was the legal limit for driving).
The researchers controlled the alcohol concentration in each participant’s breath using breathalyzers. With each measurement, they asked the participants to estimate their own breath alcohol concentration. All participants were asked to introduce themselves when they thought they had reached the legal driving limit.
The team found that on the first day of the study, more than a third (39%) of the participants who believed they had reached the legal driving limit had, in fact, already exceeded it. On the second day this proportion increased to more than half (53%). The researchers also noted that the participants became less accurate in estimating their BrAC level the more drunk they became..
Road traffic injuries have become the leading cause of death for people between the ages of five and 29, and recently the World Health Organization has said that alcohol-related road accidents are one of the main causes.