Is it time to reduce drink drive limits?

[JFKvsNixon]

A couple of glasses (hell, lets call it a bottle to be sure).

 

9 units for a 12% wine.

 

Assuming you're entirely average, that's 9 hours from the point you start drinking it, until it's all been eliminated.

 

Say the evening started at 2000, you're good to drive at 0500 in the morning.

 

As I said earlier all the calculations are for Mr Average, but there are different factors that may lead you to break down the alcohol more slowly, your metabolism does change for example. I'm 100% certain that you'd be safe to drive, but you cannot say with 100% certainty that any test for alcohol would return a 0% alcohol level. Which was my point.

[nikki-red]

 

A couple of glasses (hell, lets call it a bottle to be sure).

 

9 units for a 12% wine.

 

Assuming you're entirely average, that's 9 hours from the point you start drinking it, until it's all been eliminated.

 

Say the evening started at 2000, you're good to drive at 0500 in the morning.

 

 

Wouldn't it take 9 hours from when you FINISH drinking it to all be out of your system?

[truman]

Wouldn't it take 9 hours from when you FINISH drinking it to all be out of your system?

 

No,your body will start to process the alcohol as soon as it hits the blood stream..why would it wait until you'd finished drinking?

[nikki-red]

No,your body will start to process the alcohol as soon as it hits the blood stream..why would it wait until you'd finished drinking?

 

 

I actually meant wouldnt it all be processed 9 hours from the very last drink, rather than when you started drinking the bottle of wine. Didnt word it very well, sorry.

[Zamo]

It is if they drink drive and plough into people

 

If the drinking had made them unfit to drive then of course it is other people's business. My argument is that we shouldn't distinguish between causes of unfitness because it doesn't really make a great deal of difference to the people being ploughed into does it? If we focused on tests to identify when someone is unfit (rather than just over an arbitrary alcohol limit) we could deal with all unfit drivers. It would be fairer and lead to safer roads would it not?

 

Yaaaawwwnn

 

People who are unfit to drive (or post) because they are sleepy should be banned too.

[Cyclone]

Judging unfitness to drive only when they kill people is a poor way of making the roads safer.

 

---------- Post added 24-12-2014 at 16:20 ----------

 

I actually meant wouldnt it all be processed 9 hours from the very last drink, rather than when you started drinking the bottle of wine. Didnt word it very well, sorry.

 

No, it's from the first drink, not the last.

 

---------- Post added 24-12-2014 at 16:21 ----------

 

As I said earlier all the calculations are for Mr Average, but there are different factors that may lead you to break down the alcohol more slowly, your metabolism does change for example. I'm 100% certain that you'd be safe to drive, but you cannot say with 100% certainty that any test for alcohol would return a 0% alcohol level. Which was my point.

 

I doubt I'd want to drive at 0500 in the morning after that.

 

But by the time I'd be likely to want to drive, another 4 hours later. I'd be perfectly happy that my bal was 0.

[Eater Sundae]

As I said earlier all the calculations are for Mr Average, but there are different factors that may lead you to break down the alcohol more slowly, your metabolism does change for example. I'm 100% certain that you'd be safe to drive, but you cannot say with 100% certainty that any test for alcohol would return a 0% alcohol level. Which was my point.

 

This is something I'm not sure about. I wonder what tests have been done to determine what relationship there is between residual alcohol levels and driving ability, over several hours. Even though most if not all of the alcohol may have been processed and removed by the body, the person may be tired and not as bright and competent as they would have been if they hadn't had any alcohol. Has their driving ability been checked in this situation?

[rockonvynil]

Statistical analysis shows more people are killed by sober drivers every year .

[Cyclone]

More people per sober mile driven? Perhaps not.

 

---------- Post added 24-12-2014 at 18:42 ----------

 

This is something I'm not sure about. I wonder what tests have been done to determine what relationship there is between residual alcohol levels and driving ability, over several hours. Even though most if not all of the alcohol may have been processed and removed by the body, the person may be tired and not as bright and competent as they would have been if they hadn't had any alcohol. Has their driving ability been checked in this situation?

 

Tiredness is a separate factor. Alcohol has physiological effects which are fairly well documented. Residual or fresh makes little difference to the effect.

[bowie1867]

Won't be long before there's a total ban or tax on everything 'fun' we'll all be walking around personality-less, totalitarian rubbish from people who think they know better when really they haven't got a Scooby what is actually going on at ground level, and btw I believe lowering the limits good, it will get more people off the road due to yearly bans plus a few extra million in fines to then set on a few more people with zero clues to make up a few more psycho rules