What Do You Think the Legal Limit for Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) Is?
SodaHead Living
2013/02/08 00:51:09
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76 votes
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13% | |||
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24 votes
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4% | |||
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440 votes
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73% | |||
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62 votes
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10% | |||
With occasions like Valentine's Day and school graduations coming up, it's no secret that many will celebrate in the form of a drink or two. And while toasting with a glass of wine is typically not a big deal, things get a lot more serious when driving is entered into the equation.
Whether you've been in the car with a driver under the influence or felt a little hesitant driving after a couple drinks yourself, we wanted to gauge your own experiences and opinions about drinking and driving. So let's get to it with this Drinking and Driving Survey. And don't forget to be safe out there, folks.
Whether you've been in the car with a driver under the influence or felt a little hesitant driving after a couple drinks yourself, we wanted to gauge your own experiences and opinions about drinking and driving. So let's get to it with this Drinking and Driving Survey. And don't forget to be safe out there, folks.
Read More: http://www.sodahead.com/survey/featured/Drinking-D...
Top Opinion
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Moodybloo70 2013/02/08 15:26:35
There is a legal limit, but it's so low (like 0.0000001 or something) that only one drink would put anyone over the limit. Unless you weigh 400 pounds or something like that.
It should be the same in America. Enough is enough.
As long as America continues to tolerate a certain level of drinking and driving, there will continue to be alcohol-related accidents that cause tragedy and death.
standard was lowered to 0.10 in Ohio until that federal mandate required all states to set it at 0.08 for drivers of ordinary passenger vehicles. Officers still have option to charge impaired driving for less than 0.08 especially if over 0.05 if there are other signs of impairment. Those who operate commercial vehicles including the big rigs and school busses are per se violators at 0.04. Those who are under the 21 year minimum age who blow as low as 0.02 can be charged with a DUI level offense called driving after underage drinking.
Anyone who is voting for 1.1 needs to retake their middle school health and mathematics, or else stop consuming that vodka. 1.1 was ELEVEN times the legal limit when it was still 0.1. Now it is 13 3/4 times the legal limit. For most people, a blood alcohol level this high would mean immediate death by alcohol intoxication. Only a long time alcoholic who has built up a body tolerance for this could survive and even they would be knocked out and probably unconscious at this Blood Alcohol Concentration level.
in my younger years I was pulled over three times and asked to blow the meter (once for a tail light, once for speeding, once for driving too slowly)
All three times I blew over the limit and was let go by the officer because I walked the line, did the alphabet backwards and could still drive fine...
As you can imagine, I've gone to work hungover many times, praying I didn't encounter the coppers on the way!
0.05 and you are twice as likely to cause an accident
0.08 and you are 7 times more likely
Edit WA went 0.05 in 1991 so 22 years ago
but my wife...could drink a bottle of red with no problem.... of course I understand
there must be a number for the police measure for DWI...bark
I have a friend who got a DUI. He'd go to the bar, have a couple of drinks, try to drive home, and the breathalyzer would tell him "No." So he'd go back to the bar, suck down a glass of water, try again, and it would say "Yes."
The whole thing is stupid. And totally missing the point.
If you're drunk, you're probably going to kill someone.
I drove to work this morning totally sober. There are lots of flashing lights warning about limited sighting distance. I pulled around a curve and there was some jackass in the middle of the road trying to turn left. He wasn't bright enough to get into the turning lane where he belonged.
I slammed on my brakes, and my car started skidding, trying to avoid him.
It was sheer luck (and the skill of all the other drivers around me) that kept me from starting a fairly major pile-up.
Pretty much everything about the current "drunk driver" laws has completely missed the point.
A faulty breathalyzer and a stupid driver have no relevance to drunk drivers.
It shouldn't about hammering some guy who had 2 or 3 drinks at happy hour. That just turns it back into Prohibition (which was doomed from the start).
I've known *way* to many people who were probably slightly over the legal limit (because they were feeling stupid...this is what alcohol does) who decided to have another couple of drinks for the road. After that, it isn't that big a deal for the real drunks (who are the point) to decide to just get wasted...after all, they're just criminals who haven't gotten caught at that point.
They weren't worried about getting into wrecks and killing someone (which *should* be the point). They were worried about being caught. And they aren't really any more likely to "get caught" at .08 than they would be at .12...which seems iike a reasonable target for the original point.
They're just more likely to actually kill someone else...and the penalty doesn't seem to be that much worse.
It gets worse. *IF* someone is stupid enough to put him/herself in the position of "needing" to drive home after drinking too much, they can't drive slowly and carefully. That's pretty much a guaranteed DUI. So they might as well embrace everything that alcohol does to screw with your system and do their best to p...
It shouldn't about hammering some guy who had 2 or 3 drinks at happy hour. That just turns it back into Prohibition (which was doomed from the start).
I've known *way* to many people who were probably slightly over the legal limit (because they were feeling stupid...this is what alcohol does) who decided to have another couple of drinks for the road. After that, it isn't that big a deal for the real drunks (who are the point) to decide to just get wasted...after all, they're just criminals who haven't gotten caught at that point.
They weren't worried about getting into wrecks and killing someone (which *should* be the point). They were worried about being caught. And they aren't really any more likely to "get caught" at .08 than they would be at .12...which seems iike a reasonable target for the original point.
They're just more likely to actually kill someone else...and the penalty doesn't seem to be that much worse.
It gets worse. *IF* someone is stupid enough to put him/herself in the position of "needing" to drive home after drinking too much, they can't drive slowly and carefully. That's pretty much a guaranteed DUI. So they might as well embrace everything that alcohol does to screw with your system and do their best to pretend they're sober. Just to avoid attracting attention from the cops. Since, after all, their only concern at that point is avoiding getting caught.
Much better to hammer the serious drunks on the road and give wrist slaps to people who are "mildly impaired"...unless they actually cause damage.
It has been shown repeatedly in rigorous scientific studies that even low BAC (8%) noticeably affects drivers' concentration, judgement and coordination. This is the reason why the whole of Europe moved to a 5% BAC rule years ago.
It was shown in a 2003 study by the University of Barcelona and University College London that this law reduced road fatality rates by 4.3% by population and 6.1% by amount of kilometres driven.
Though the lower alcohol law must be accompanied by random breath-testing to enforce it.
To dismiss "some guy who had 2 or 3 drinks at happy hour." as not being part of the massive social and economic problem that road fatalities are, is to misunderstand it completely.
I've just spent too many years around the idiots we *really* want to keep off the roads.
The dumbasses who drink just enough to feel invulnerable...so they drink a bit more.
I don't know how it works in Australia. Here, the basic attitude amounts to "Well, I'll get arrested if I get caught, so what's another drink?"
It's a stupid, horrible, attitude. But this is the way Americans have been taught to think. Most of us don't care about the basic point (killing another person). Mostly, the drunks are just worried about getting caught.
It's completely and totally backwards.
> Though the lower alcohol law must be accompanied by random breath-testing to
> enforce it.
I know you Aussies don't care much about ideas about ideas like privacy and personal freedom...but I hope this sort of crap never gains any traction here. It makes sense, but...I'd personally rather take my chances with a drunk driver who's out of his mind than a random cop who has another excuse to stop me.
The excuses they already have are more than enough.
Of course, once a person has drunk a certain amount, those logical thoughts just don't operate and that's a worry. The idea is to stop people before they get to that state of drunkenness
Certainly the police random breath-testing units have had a massive effect on road fatalities (in a good way) and they are widely accepted as necessary.
It may seem from your perspective that Australians don't care much about freedoms. That's because the balance between personal liberty and benefits for society as a whole leans more to the latter here.
Taking 30 seconds to breathe into a breathalyzer seems like a tiny price to pay for hugely safer roads.
Also, we have had ongoing tv commercials for years that are designed to wake people up the the realities of road accidents. Take a look at one of the hardest-hitting ones. Beware, hard to watch .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I just advice not to drink at all before you drive.
*edit* didn't see the "other" option before, should have clicked that.
http://www.south-floridaattor...