By Don Asoka Wijewardena
Health Ministry Additional Secretary Dr. Palitha Maheepala last Friday said that when driving under the influence of liquor a person would lose the ability to make sound and responsible decisions. He said the ability to shift attention from one point of action to another, to understand situations, signs and signals, to coordinate motor skills, hearing clearly and to see and understand a situation and then take action, would be affected by consuming liquor.
Speaking at a media conference on Safe Road User Behaviour during the Festive Season, at Health Education Bureau, he said Alcohol would first affect a person’s mental functions and the ability to judge would be the first to go. The capacity to reason and caution would be reduced quickly, he said.
Dr. Maheepala said that road traffic accidents were the fourth leading cause of deaths in Sri Lanka. Driving under the influence of liquor had caused many accidents and such accidents had shown a marked increase recently.
SSP Motor Traffic K. Arasaratnam said that when driving under the influence of liquor, alcohol would impair a driver’s ability to concentrate on the multiple tasks involved in driving, such as vehicle speed, position of the vehicle, other traffic on the road, tuning the radio and participation in conversation with passengers.
He pointed out that alcohol would also impair the driver’s ability to interpret situations, signs, and or signals which a driver must understand and respond to quickly to be safe on the road. It would leave the driver easily confused and not able to respond to emergency situations or to comprehend the meaning of simple signals.
Accidents and Orthopaedic Service National Hospital Deputy Director Dr. Prasad Ariyawansa said that a road traffic accident victim could lose vision and hearing acuity. It would impair ability to coordinate motor skills, beginning with the fine motor skills (putting key in ignition) to gross motor skills (walking to the car).
The victim in an accident, he said, would experience health complications, such as reduction of visual acuity up to 32 per cent, weakening of peripheral vision resulting in tunnel vision, impairment of the ability to judge distance and depth perception, dilate pupil, slow down reaction of pupil resulting in problems with on-coming headlights (glare) and ‘blind’ driving.
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