BUS DRIVERS ARE DRIVEN TO DRINK (EMBARGOED UNTIL 4 P.M. EDT)

BUS DRIVERS ARE DRIVEN TO DRINK (EMBARGOED UNTIL 4 P.M. EDT)

SAN FRANCISCO (Wireless Flash) -- When Ralph Cramden threatened to send his wife to the moon, he may have been in a drunken rage. A new study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley shows bus drivers subjected to lots of stress on the job are more likely to become boozehounds. The research looked at bus drivers in San Francisco, where almost a quarter of them have some sort of drinking problem. Interestingly, the study shows San Francisco's bus drivers rarely drink on the job -- which doesn't explain why the city has one of the worst driving records of any transit system. Just this month, drivers have mowed over a fire hydrant, knocked an 11-year-old girl off her bike, and plowed into the back of a dump truck, injuring 17 people. The bus driver study appears in the July issue of "Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research."