Alcohol effects — Maine Permit Test

You begin losing your driving skills with the first drink.

A driver who thinks one beer does not count is already reacting a little slower than they believe.

You begin losing your driving skills with the first drink.

Alcohol blurs vision, causes double vision and weakens judgment of distance and speed; vision is affected at .02 BAC for all drivers.

A driver well under the legal limit can still misjudge how fast an oncoming car is closing.

Vision is impacted at .02 BAC for all drivers.

It normally takes about 7 seconds for your eyes to recover from headlight glare, and a drinking driver's eyes take much longer.

At 55 mph, 7 seconds of glare is almost two football fields of road driven half blind.

It normally takes about seven seconds for your eyes to recover from headlight glare so at 55 miles per hour that is almost the length of two football fields!

Normal vision is reduced by 50% at night because there is not enough light for your eyes to work properly.

With half your sight gone after dark, anything that dims it further, like alcohol, leaves too little.

The ability to see well becomes even more important at night since normal vision is reduced by 50% because there is not enough light for your eyes to function properly.

A driver who has been drinking is more likely to fail to dim headlights, change lanes often, drift from the center of the lane and take too long to brake.

Spotting these signs in the car ahead tells you to drop back and give it room.

Fail to dim headlights for oncoming traffic;

When do you begin losing your driving skills from alcohol?

With the first drink. A driver who thinks one beer does not count is already reacting a little slower than they believe. Maine Driver’s License Manual, p.28: “You begin losing your driving skills with the first drink.”