What is the limit anyway? One pint??

If I'm going to be driving within a couple of hours, I'll just have coke. If I know it will be an hour or two I'll have a pint 'cos for some reason I've always thought that one pint is pretty much on the limit. Drink it quickly then get pulled at the wrong moment and you could find it's all hit your bloodstream at once???

Way to stretch the forum there Nick!

If I am planning to drive in the next 4-6 hours, I won't drink anything. If I plan on drinking, I'll leave the car at home.

We are going to visit a brewery next weekend, with a beer tasting at the end. That will be 2 beers around midday, followed by a tour around Bremen with a colleague. My girlfriend and I are taking the train, even though we'd probably be driving back 4-6 hours after the beer tasting.

If I have a heavy night, I'll walk or take the bus. If I need to drive the next day, I'll stick with soft drinks...

I have a friend, he is an alcoholic. He'll drink half a case of beer every evening, yet he drives to work at 6 in the morning! I've no idea how he still has a licence!

Having seen the results of drink driving - a guy overtook us and drove straight under an oncoming coach - I really have no problems with banning drinking and driving.

I have my own zero tolerance limit. Not that I get to go out drinking much these days

A couple of things about this.

I have just started a study on alcohol use/abuse (nothing academical, just something for myself) and was surprised to find that whilst most sites offering advice on safe drinking put a limit of around three units (pint and a half or thereabouts) a government web-site said three units for women and four for men, more than any independent web-site. I was surprised that the government would be the least conservative especially as we know that it isn't wise to push the limit.

Alcohol does get absorbed into the blood very quickly and levels in the blood can rise rapidly. The police are not allowed to breathalyse anyone until at least 20 minutes after their last drink. This stops false readings from the sudden initial rise in alcohol levels (as far as I understand) and a police officer once told me that after chugging a can of shandy he got a positive reading with a breath test immediately afterwards, so they have to adhere to this rule.

Also, to be prosecuted, there has to be a positive reading in the station and if you are only just over the limit at the time of being tested at the scene then you would probably give a negative at the station and would avoid prosecution. I don't know how it works, but if police suspect that you have been driving for an hour for example and was probably well over the limit when you started driving the vehicle the level when you started driving can be calculated and you can be prosecuted for this.

Like I say, I don't know how it works, but this would probably be used for serious incidents like if you were involved in an accident and the police caught up with you an hour later.

Roughly, Wiki has more detail

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content

For the average person drinking weak beer it is about a pint. If your build is small or your beer is strong it could be less.

Well sensible people didn't stop drinking and infact drinking increased in many states with there being twice as many speakeasies during prohibition in new york as there were bars when it were legal. As far as prohibition arguements are concerned (with every recreational drug) is that the lessons of history have never been learned, hence prohibition of narcotics leading to surges in use, crime and world wide instability etc.



A big problem with this is that people have different tolerances to alcohol. With blood levels wouldn't that be much like the glucose moniter for diabetes.


very much so. +another

What has prohibition got to do with drink driving? We are talking about not getting in your car, if you have been drinking. This isn't a ban on drinking, it is a ban on stupidity.

Legislating against stupidity is, in general, wrong. But drink driving has no positive, non-stupid side. The knee jerk gun bans are not really a good idea, some people need guns (for example) - although I am with Prof, there is no need for hand guns to be legal, outside of the police force, for civilians.

Why should the police force have more dangerous weapons than those they police. Surely that just leads to a "one-up" type situation.
I think this is a very interesting point:


On reflection I'm inclined to agree. Common sense (as usual) is the thing I would prefer in this situation. Unfortunately, it's probably only a matter of time, given this country's predilection for legislating us to death.

The problem is, a person may be intelligent, people are stupid.

Common sense isn't very common at all. I think the meters put into the ignition system to check the drivers breath aren't a bad idea. At least you know, before setting out on a journey, if you are over the limit...

You're right, it's not common at all. However, legislation in place of it, is surely worse. But as tk points out, a flat out ban could well lead to bigger problems.

Lesser of two, IMO.

How did I miss this thread .Beer.Nuff said.