By Anupum Pant
Well, driving drunk is the worst thing you can do because doing that almost makes it sure you’d get into an accident. The blood alcohol limits are there for a purpose. But the interesting thing about drunk driving is, in the case of an accident due to drunk driving, your odds of survival are much higher than the passenger who’s not been drinking. This is real science and there’s a reason why it works.
Still, this shouldn’t be taken as an encouragement to drive drunk because doing that means you are inviting trouble for sure. Surviving doesn’t always mean a good thing when you have to live without a limb for the rest of your life.
The reason why it works has been evaluated in a study published in the journal called American surgeon. The study looked at 8000 old driving accidents and found that
Seven percent of people who came in sober died of their injuries, while those who were hurt while drunk only died one percent of the time. – [Scientific American]
No one is sure about why it happens, but one thing might be that the alcohol present in your blood during traumatic injuries protects you against nerve damage.
Other theories suggest that being drunk makes your body loose. That means you might actually absorb the force better throughout the time than a stiff conscious body. Think of a soft shock absorber vs a hard sports shock absorber.