Traffic safety: This Purim, don’t drink and drive

Jerusalemites least likely to drive after drinking, with only 8% reporting they'd driven after imbibing in the past year.

By MELANIE LIDMAN
Hit-and-run accident ambulence_311 (photo credit: Uzi Barak )
Hit-and-run accident ambulence_311
(photo credit: Uzi Barak )
One in five people has driven after drinking alcohol at least once in the past year, according to a survey released by the Or Yarok (Green Light) traffic safety organization ahead of Purim.
Jerusalemites were the least likely to drive after drinking alcohol, with only 8 percent reporting that they had driven after imbibing in the past year.
Approximately 23% of residents in the southern and northern regions said that they had driven after drinking alcohol, similar to 20% of residents in Tel Aviv and the center of the country who said they drank and drove at least once.
Or Yarok released the results of a 500-person phone poll ahead of Purim due to the drinking associated with the holiday, which begins on Wednesday night across the country and on Thursday night in Jerusalem.
“Alcohol affects you from the first drop, and anyone who thinks differently is wrong,” said the director of Or Yarok, Shmuel Abuav, in a statement released with the survey.
“Alcohol affects your attention, memory and coordination. Alcohol causes poor judgment and an increase in driving errors and impaired vision, and decreases the ability to control and respond to the vehicle.”
For young drivers, alcohol is an even larger issue.
Alcohol is a factor in approximately 75% of accidents involving teenage drivers, according to Or Yarok. In 2010, 14 teenagers were killed and 587 were injured in alcohol- related traffic accidents.
In 2010, the “zero percent alcohol” law went into effect, meaning drivers under the age of 24 cannot drive after drinking alcohol, no matter what amount.