This short film “Under the Influence” shows a field study of driving under the influence conducted at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Driving Academy facility by the Los Angeles County Alcohol Safety Action Project. The film features effective footage of people driving a course of orange cones before and after drinking, clearly demonstrating the impaired nature of their driving after reaching a blood alcohol content of 0.01. Narrator Chuck Bowman talks to the camera about traffic fatalities from drinking and driving while he drives a car. Bowman interviews a handful of people about their views of their own driving abilities after they’ve had a few drinks (00:54), and they all feel they drive better after a few drinks. These test subjects walk on the Driving Academy’s open lot where several courses have been set up for the study (02:42). A car is driven through a course of cones. A police officer talks to the test subjects about the courses and the courses’ objectives. A car drives toward a stop light in the accident simulator course then swerves when the light turns yellow (05:26). Test subjects drive through the courses sober to establish a base score (05:55). A car drives in reverse through a course. Another driver drives through the course, swerving and knocking down cones. A subject drinks alcohol to get their blood alcohol content to 0.10 (07:18). Footage shows the test subjects drinking and talking to the camera about drinking. A woman blows into a gas chromatograph to register her BAC (09:17); other test subjects blow into the breathalyzer as well. The drunk test subjects talk to the camera joking and clearly enjoying themselves. A car is driven through the course, knocking down cones repeatedly (11:19). A subject drives a car in reverse, knocking down cones. The film shows a handful of test subjects driving through the courses, struggling to stay on course. One car almost makes it through the course without knocking down a cone (12:58). Another car struggles to get back onto the course after veering off (14:04). The test subjects evaluate their drunk driving skills after driving through the course, admitting they shouldn’t be driving (15:05). A shot from the point of view of the backseat of the car shows the driver struggling to drive through the course (16:38). The test subjects go to accident simulator course to test driving with extreme emergency situations (17:18), and each one fails. One driver starts swerving right out of the gate.

The drivers swerve the car as they drive through the accident simulator, knocking over cones and struggling to stay in the lanes of the course. The participants sit to learn about their impairment test scores after drinking, with everyone having some degree of impairment. The test subjects talk to the camera about how they no longer believe they can safely drink and drive (21:35).

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com