What makes people get behind the wheel drunk? A Japanese driving school pondered this issue, after which it ultimately wanted to let the experience speak for itself. Driving instructors from the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka came up with a very unusual method in an attempt to raise awareness about drunk driving. By allowing drivers to consume alcohol in a controlled manner before getting behind the wheel, overconfident motorists should be convinced to renounce it, writes the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun. The thought? Let people experience for themselves how dangerous being drunk in traffic can be.
The experiment stems from a painful event during the summer of 2006 that left a deep impression on the city’s local community. Then a drunk municipal official rammed into a vehicle, killing three young people from the same family instantly. In particular, the words of the driver who caused the fatal collision are used as a learning opportunity in the experiment: “I was drunk, but I thought I could drive well.”
The sessions at the driving school, which are part of a local police campaign, serve as a wake-up call for motorists who have similar ideas. “We let you experience how much your driving behavior changes before and after drinking,” test participants were told by the instructors. They were then subjected to three separate tests, including slaloming between obstacles, performing an S-turn and riding a narrow course with sharp turns.
Invincibility
While it is well known that alcohol consumption impairs the driver’s judgment and responsiveness, “the driver assumes he is driving safely” so quotes the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun an expert. Drunk drivers who get off without incident despite their reckless driving are said to develop a sense of invincibility. As a result, they keep repeating the dangerous behavior. “That is perhaps the greatest danger of drunk driving.”
In Japan, alcohol consumption is by no means a social problem. In fact, the Japanese alcohol market is shrinking. Between 1995 and 2020, the alcohol consumption of the average adult Japanese has decreased from 100 liters to 75 liters per year. The drop in alcohol sales was mainly due to aging and changes in the lifestyle of younger generations.
Read also: More drunk drivers behind the wheel – and more deaths too. How did that happen?