Black plate (3,1)Cadillac Escalade/Escalade ESV Owner Manual - 2011Driving and Operating 9-3Drunk Driving{ WARNINGDrinking and then driving isvery dangerous. Your reflexes,perceptions, attentiveness, andjudgment can be affected byeven a small amount of alcohol.You can have a serious — oreven fatal — collision if youdrive after drinking.Do not drink and drive or ride witha driver who has been drinking.Ride home in a cab; or if you arewith a group, designate a driverwho will not drink.Death and injury associated withdrinking and driving is a globaltragedy.Alcohol affects four things thatanyone needs to drive a vehicle:judgment, muscular coordination,vision, and attentiveness.Police records show thatalmost 40 percent of all motorvehicle-related deaths involvealcohol. In most cases, thesedeaths are the result of someonewho was drinking and driving.In recent years, more than17,000 annual motor vehicle-relateddeaths have been associated withthe use of alcohol, with about250,000 people injured.For persons under 21, it is againstthe law in every U.S. state to drinkalcohol. There are good medical,psychological, and developmentalreasons for these laws.The obvious way to eliminate theleading highway safety problem isfor people never to drink alcoholand then drive.Medical research shows thatalcohol in a person's systemcan make crash injuries worse,especially injuries to the brain,spinal cord, or heart. This meansthat when anyone who has beendrinking — driver or passenger — isin a crash, that person's chance ofbeing killed or permanently disabledis higher than if the person had notbeen drinking.Control of a VehicleThe following three systemshelp to control the vehicle whiledriving — brakes, steering, andaccelerator. At times, as whendriving on snow or ice, it is easy toask more of those control systemsthan the tires and road can provide.Meaning, you can lose control of thevehicle. See StabiliTrak ® System onpage 9‑47.Adding non‐dealer accessories canaffect vehicle performance. SeeAccessories and Modifications onpage 10‑3.
