Hoot guide to drug driving laws

Between us, the staff here at Hoot have had many years' experience in the motor insurance industry, and it shows in the breadth of our motoring knowledge.

We've always known the cheap car insurance side inside-out, but in the course of speaking to our customers every day we couldn't help picking up a remarkable quantity of other motoring info - everything from how to prevent car theft to seatbelt laws and the meaning of all those obscure road signs.

Pretty soon, somebody suggested we find a way to put all this surplus knowledge to good use -and so the Hoot Guides were born.

The Guides form an expanding series of web pages, packed full of advice and information for today's driver on virtually any motor-related topic. This particular one focuses on the effects and consequences of drug driving.

Driving under the influence of recreational or prescription drugs has been identified as a major problem by a number of medical research groups including the British Medical Association, but as yet it has not received the same kind of sustained media attention as the issue of drink driving.

Many people are unaware that drugs they have taken may impair their abilities as drivers, particularly in the case of over-the-counter remedies and prescriptions. The drug in question may act as a stimulant or a sedative - in either case, their effects on you can be disastrous. And if you get caught drug driving, the very least you can expect is the loss of your licence and cheap car insurance.

How do drugs affect your driving?
Different drugs affect your state of mind in a variety of ways, the vast majority of which will hinder your driving ability. Even a drug which, on the face of it, might appear to benefit you as a motorist probably has some perilously dangerous side-effects.

A stimulant like cocaine, for example, might make you feel super-alert at the wheel, but it also triggers reckless over-confidence - the last thing you want as a driver.

So what other dangerous reactions do the various legal and illegal drugs provoke in users, and how do they affect our ability on the roads?

Like alcohol, cannabis and other relaxant drugs make it difficult to react quickly under pressure - an essential skill for safe driving. The effect of smoking cannabis has been likened to drinking five or six pints of beer, which equals two or three times the drink driving limit for most people.

On top of that, cannabis can blur your vision, ruin hand-to-eye coordination and make it difficult to concentrate.

Prescription drugs for depression, like amitriptyline or diazepam, or certain strong migraine and hay fever pills can cause side effects which are similar to those of cannabis or alcohol. Mixing any of these drugs together can lead to some spectacularly dangerous driving.

Unlike relaxants, stimulant drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy can make you feel much more alert and in control than you would be normally. Users report feeling 'invincible' when on these drugs, and as drivers this make them exceptionally reckless.

The hallucinogenic properties of a drug like ecstasy can also make it difficult to concentrate on the road ahead - and thanks to the high, users aren't aware of any danger when driving.

As with relaxants, the risks of drug driving on stimulants are magnified with every new chemical you add to the mix. Cocaine and alcohol, for instance, makes a particularly dangerous cocktail - it impairs your driving abilities whilst making you ridiculously confident in them.

For more information on drugs and their effects, visit the British National Formulary at http://www.bnf.org.

Police drug tests
If you are pulled over for suspected drug driving, the police will give you what's called a "Field Impairment Test" (FIT) to find out if you're under the influence.

The FIT tests your balance, coordination and multitasking - areas that are immediately and noticeably affected by most forms of drug use. The police will have no trouble working out which drug you've taken, and they have the right to arrest you at the roadside under the Road Traffic Act (1988).

The penalties for drug driving
Drug driving is treated very much like drink driving in UK law. Convictions can carry anything up to a six month prison term and a £5,000 fine, along with a driving ban lasting at least 12 months and points on your licence.

Besides that, a driving conviction and a criminal record mean you'll have no chance of seeing a cheap car insurance quote any time in the near future - not even from an online car insurance provider like Hoot.

Of course, this is to say nothing of the thousands of drug drivers who pay for their stupidity by wrecking a car, suffering serous injury or even killing someone.

Try cheap car insurance from Hoot
Do your bit by avoiding drug driving, and the motor insurance experts here at Hoot will do their damnedest to find you a cheap car insurance quote.

We're well known in the car insurance business for our phenomenally cheap car insurance policies, and it's a reputation we're very proud of. Hoot's success in this area boils down to two key factors: our unique approach to marketing and our commitment to online car insurance.

Most motor insurance firms rely on TV and radio commercials to raise awareness of their car insurance policies - but at Hoot, promotion is done a little differently. When we realised how much it would cost to compete for screen time with the likes of Churchill or Admiral, we decided to scrap the advertising budget altogether and leave the marketing up to our customers.

We saved a phenomenal amount of money by not advertising, and this meant we could offer cheap car insurance at prices that undercut many of our flashier competitors. Hoot customers were so amazed by the savings that they were happy to recommend us to friends - today, word-of-mouth accounts for a staggering number of our new clients (and it never cost us a penny).

The other secret of Hoot's success is the way we've embraced online car insurance. While other firms spend a fortune in rent for high street shops and call centres, we save money by doing as much of our business as possible on the web. And as with the advertising, we pass this saving onto you in the form of even cheaper car insurance premiums.

So what are you waiting for? Give the button below a click and find out just how cheap car insurance from Hoot could be.