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I went to Autostadt last week, the vast theme park built around the VW factory in Wolfsburg (think Disneyland for petrolheads). We had dinner in the Phaeno Science Centre, where 250 ‘experimental stations’ allow visitors to try out scientific experiments with their hors d’oeuvres – quite bizarre.
My fave was the reaction-time experiment. You sit and stare at ten buttons and when one lights up, you hit it. After ten tries, the monitor calculates your average reaction time. With practice, you should get it down from around 0.4sec to 0.1sec, but I only had time to reach 0.3sec when we were called through for the main course.
After a couple of glasses of wine, I had a jolly good idea. This sequence of events has caused all sorts of trouble in my life, but in this case it was fairly tame stuff. I went back to the reaction-time experiment, pressed start, and after the ten flashing buttons had been duly hit I knew without doubt that I had beaten my previous reaction time by a substantial margin. I was relaxed, confident, and realised that the wine had honed – rather than dulled – my reactions. Then the machine flashed up the result – 0.55sec. Worse than I had been on my very first attempt, with no practice.
So next time someone tells me that they actually drive better after a couple of glasses of wine…
For many years I firmly believed that a couple of “wets” improved my performance and reaction time at the wheel.
However I now know better (not from any specific incident - just a gut feeling) and simply do not drink-and-drive.
AlfaMartini | 02 Jun 07 - 15:36Most of the former Eastern-Bloc countries who are now members of the European Union have zero tolerance laws regarding drink-driving, and anyone caught behind the wheel with alcohol in their system can face immediate imprisonment. Didn’t we used to think of these countries as being a little bit backward?
Graham Whyte | 09 Jun 07 - 12:15