Car Insurance If You Have Drunk Alcohol
December 21, 2019
Driving and alcohol together are a danger. If you have drunk alcohol and then drive you are causing one of the most frequent risk factors that cause serious traffic accidents.
In this article I tell you what you need to know so that it does not even occur to you to take the car if you have drunk alcohol.
Alcohol is involved between 30% and 50% of fatal accidents. In 2015, 29% of deceased drivers exceeded blood alcohol limits.
Most times a driver who drinks and drives does not usually end up being part of an accident.
Most times a driver who drinks and drives does not usually end up being part of an accident.
Therefore, it is very easy to conclude that who has taken the car having drunk and has not had an accident, repeat that situation again.
If this attitude is habitual, it is only a matter of time before the accident ends.
Driving, having drunk, generates a series of effects on the behavior that is interesting to remember:
- False security in driving capabilities
- It diminishes the sense of responsibility
- Increase aggressive and impulsive behaviors
- More infractions are committed
- It collects less information about the environment
- The lights are perceived worse
- Difficulty to calculate the speed and the other vehicles
- The visual field is reduced
- Problems occur to maintain visual concentration
- Difficulty in coordinating information, responding cause and effect
- Increased reaction time, the whole decision-making process slows down
- Greater tolerance to risk
Regardless of what the law indicates, it is obvious that alcohol, however low, alters driving capacity, increasing the possibility of suffering a traffic accident.
The legality of driving drunk
Breathalyzer treatment in driving has gone through various legal situations. In these moments there are two possible answers, the criminal route and the administrative route.
Criminal route: Whoever drives a motor vehicle under the influence of alcoholic beverages will be punished with a prison sentence or with a fine and work for the benefit of the community. In addition he will be deprived of the driving of motor vehicles.
Anyone who drives with manifest recklessness (driving under the influence of alcohol and with excessive speed) and endangers the life or integrity of people will be punished with imprisonment and withdrawal of the card.
Administrative route: Every driver is obliged to undergo alcohol tests when they are involved in a traffic accident or have committed an infraction.
Driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs is punishable by:
- Prison from 3 to 6 months or
- Fine of 6 to 12 months or
- Works for the benefit of the community from 30 to 90 days and
- Deprivation of the right to drive from 1 up to 4 years
Refusal to submit to the tests has a penalty of:
- Prison from 6 months to a year and
- Deprivation of the right to drive from 1 to 4 years
Those penalties are derived from a quick trial to which the driver must go with a blood alcohol level higher than 0.60, for having committed a crime. They are brought to the attention of the judge through a police report.
What is our advice? Logically, we recommend that you do not drink any alcohol at all if you are going to drive. The consequences are very serious and ignorance of the law does not exempt compliance.
In addition, there are other implications that affect the coverage of the accident if this happens when the driver has ingested alcohol and tests positive.
If you have a sinister and have drunk alcohol
The insurers in the event of a loss with positive alcohol by their insured operate as follows:
- If there has been damage to the insured’s vehicle, the companies do not cover the insured’s own damages.
- The companies do face the damages of the vehicle contrary by the coverage of Compulsory Civil Liability. But then, you can claim those damages from the driver, owner and policy holder of the vehicle that caused the accident.
This exclusion is determined in the general conditions of the insurance contracts of all automobile policies, reserving, the insurer, the right of repetition (claim against the deceased).
You should know that if the opponent in an accident has tested positive and you have been injured or have any kind of material damage, they will always compensate you for the damages. What happens in these cases, is that the claim must be made by criminal law, because the perpetrator has committed a crime or lack, for driving under the influence of alcohol.
In this case, the injured and or affected may claim in the same criminal proceeding, appearing as a private accusation, or by going to civil court. In any case, this does not exempt you from being cited as witnesses in the criminal process.
The insurer of the opponent will indemnify the victims as in a traffic accident without alcohol, but later will claim against the responsible driver, since driving under the influence of alcohol is excluded from all car insurance policies.
If, unfortunately, you find yourself in a situation like this, I advise you to put yourself in the hands of your insurance broker, who will advise you in the most convenient way for your interests.