Driving on Streets While Intoxicated

There's developing concern around the world approximately medication utilization and road security. Drinking alcohol and driving could be a well-studied hazard calculates for road traffic crashes, wounds, and deaths, and along with it drug-induced impairment of driving is causing expanding concern in numerous nations around the world. For a long time, there have been a few holes in our information, particularly around the worldwide degree of the issue, the relationship between drug concentrations and crash hazards, appropriate threshold limits in blood, legislation, and enforcement of successful measures to anticipate drug driving. Be that as it may, these information crevices are dynamically being filled by a developing body of proving drug use and road security, counting successful ways to decrease drug-induced street activity crashes and wounds.

Road traffic crashes are a major source of damage, inability, and passing all through the world, and road traffic wounds are the leading reason for death among individuals aged 15-29 years. Pedestrians who are impeded by liquor have an altogether higher risk of being hampered in a crash. Liquor could be a substance that decreases the function of the brain, impeding decision-making, thinking, and muscle coordination. All these capacities are basic to operate a vehicle securely. As alcohol levels rise in a person’s system, the negative impacts on the central nervous system are raised as well. Liquor is retained directly through the walls of the stomach and small intestine. At that point, it runs into the circulation system where it gathers until it is metabolized by the liver. A person's alcohol level is measured by the weight of the alcohol in a certain volume of blood, usually called Blood Alcohol Concentration or BAC.

The risk of getting included in a street traffic accident is expanded to changing degrees depending on the psychoactive medication utilization. For case, the hazard of a deadly crash happening among those who have utilized psychoactive products is approximately five times higher than among people who have not utilized them. Driving beneath the impact of alcohol, or drink-driving may be a key hazard factor for 27% of all road wounds. Hence, drink-driving may be a critical public well-being issue that influences not as it were the alcohol client but moreover, in numerous cases, innocent individuals such as travelers and people on foot. Indeed at low blood-alcohol levels, drivers encounter issues with concentration, coordination, and recognizable proof of dangers within the road environment. In expansion, at a given blood-alcohol level, drink–driving crashes can be more serious or more common when the high-speed or destitute street plan is included.

Alcohol in Bangladesh is directed and limited. Bangladesh has one of the most reduced alcohol utilization in Asia concurring to the World Bank. Beneath Bangladeshi law, any beverage containing more than 0.5% alcohol is considered an alcoholic beverage. A government allowance is fundamental for offering, putting away, and transporting alcohol. To drink alcohol in Bangladesh, one must have a legitimate allowance.

No particular study is accessible on the number of drug-addicted drivers in the Bangladeshi context. The Accident Research Institute (ARI) at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) analyzed information for 1998-2014 obtained from the Bangladesh Police. According to their investigation, 10% of drivers are sedately influenced during driving on the street. Be that as it may, the numbers are still exceptionally mooed and not reasonable, as private organizations have found the rate of drugged drivers stands around 80%. The availability of drugs at bus terminals, truck stands, and bus stations, weak law enforcement, and delays in the legal procedure might be the common reasons behind this.

A study on Road Safety Awareness Campaign in Bangladesh conducted by BRAC showed that the total addiction rate was 47.1%. Among them, 41.2% of the respondents’ consumption of drugs reduced tension, and drowsiness and made them feel fresh and 23.5% of the respondents taking alcohol before driving did not make any difference. In both cases, the probability of road accidents is getting high.

According to the Road Transport Act-2018, a person cannot drive while he is drunk. A person acting as a conductor cannot remain in the vehicle if he is drunk. If someone is caught drunk the Law says that his points will be curtailed, his driving license will be seized, and he will be jailed for 3 months or fined 10 thousand takas or both including any accident committed by him caused by a Motor vehicle injures a person or causes death will be treated as an offense under Penal Code 1960.

Data from Transport Accident Commission uncovers that in Australia roughly 41% of drivers and motorcyclists who passed on the streets and were verified, within the last five years, had drugs in their system. A viable road safety transport arrangement ought to be put in place to address drunk–driving, in conjunction with road safety measures to reduce the seriousness and chance of drunk–driving crashes. Measures that got to be input and actualized in a comprehensive way cover five fundamental zones: legislation, testing, enforcement, awareness-raising, and counseling and management.

Dhaka Ahsania Mission, Health Sector has celebrated International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking 2021 through different initiatives this year.?“Advocacy for Stronger Road Safety Legislation in Bangladesh” project of the health sector is also celebrated on this day. This is because the drivers use drugs which leads to road accidents. So to avoid accidents and to keep drivers away from drug usage, doctors, nurses, and health sector officials participated and called for including the examination process of alcohol and drug usage in the amended Road Transport Act-2018 to the Government in the social media campaign, organized by the health sector’s project “Advocacy for Stronger Road Safety Legislation in Bangladesh”.

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Dr. Tasnim Mehbuba Bandhan

Advocacy officer (Policy)

Dhaka Ahsania Mission

Health Sector

Published on: Daily Observer, 13 August 2021