You could buy a breathalyser from Ebay for £20 or under (snipurl.com/lr7s ), have a bottle of wine with a meal at home, and see what readings you get afterwards? I might get one myself actually, just to experiment with!
Personally though I wouldnt want to trust it on a night out. What if the machine is not calibrated correctly? What if you get a green reading before you set off home, but then you go over the limit while you are driving due to more alcohol leaching through your stomach lining?
I'm lucky in that my g/f is not a big drinker, so either she drives or we get taxis.
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If I drink a litre of vodka on Friday, I can?t drive till Sunday
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If i drank a litre of vodka on Friday , I would not know what day it was until Sunday
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"If i drank a litre of vodka on Friday , I would not know what day it was until Sunday"
It?s actually not that difficult if you persevere. Practice with three quarter bottles for a few nights until you feel comfortable, then crack open a litre bottle but keep it at arm?s length so it looks smaller. The hardest part is driving home.
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Like umistim I tried very hard to establish a 'legal level'
On the question of what is technically acceptable I once discussed this at some length with a doctor at a party and his opinion of legal maximum was IIRC: -
Beer - 3 x half pints of standard strength cask ale or 1 pint of strong lager or similar bottled beers.
Spirits - 3 standard pub measures.
Wine - 3 x 125ml glasses , note that most pub measures are now 250 ml.
In each case this represent 3 'units' of alcohol and to clear one unit from the body takes at least an hour.As others have said , it depends very much on your size , matabolism, whether you have had a meal etc ,etc. This is why I came to the conclusion that rather than have the worry of a breath test - no alcohol when you are driving.
Just as an aside ,my company would fire any pilot who has been found to have taken alcohol within 8 hours of flying. IMO it does not matter whether it is a $6 million dollar helicopter or a £ 10 k motor car - you are playing a dangerous game mixing alcohol and a potentially lethal weapon.
Don't take the risk.
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AngryJonny is correct in his calculation of one unit of alcohol.
Take the voulume of drink in ml
Multiply by the strength
Divide by 1000
Most of helicopters examples are over 4 units, not the three units quoted
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As I said - this was not my own opinion but that of a respected local GP and given as a rule of thumb - mind you he had drunk a few himself when he gave his opinion so he may have been talking rubbish ... but he seemed perfectly coherent.
If Angry Jonny and Gengis are indeed correct and I have no reason to believe otherwise, then it only goes to show how peoples opinions differ.
It really is just further proof of how difficult it would be for umistim to establish whether he is fit to drive according to the law after half a bottle of wine .
So why take the risk?
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Umistim
This doesn't directly answer your question. As has been said here there is no single answer to your question.
I heard a very significant story first hand from a reformed drunk driver, who was not stopped by the police but flagged down by a taxi driver.
She thougt she was under the limit but was seen colliding with a bollard doing a major amount of damage to her car.
The taxi driver had the sense to offer a lift home and she woke up the following morning, eventually saw her car and thought how lucky she was.
Her quote was "if you're going to spend £10 on a night out, why not spend an extra £2 on a taxi?"
OK this was a few years ago, but it could be £30 and £6 respectively now.
The problem with many people who try and calculate to the last drop how much alcohole they can have is that they invaribly get it wrong. You only need one incident.....
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Thanks for all the advice, it has been most interesting and informative and I will certainly act on this.
It would seem that I would be wise to stick to tonic-water which is rather uninteresting but sensible.
Many thanks to all who replied.
Umistim
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I would say safe to drive on two big glases but no more. However I make a point of NEVER driving the same night to be on the safe side.
Paul
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2 big glasses could be 6 units of alcohol. That is well over the limit and not safe, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3299037.stm
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Moped, Intresting. For me my licence is more Important so I never drive the same night.
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What has not been fully explored here, is 'morning after'.
I'm rather convinced I must have naughty when I was younger like this, but in my mind, I'm rather convinced the risk of bad driving is way under, what the same level of blood/alcohol would cause if one had just attained it. I'm not defending 'morning after' driving, just would be curious.
These days, I have an impaired sense of balance, so can look drunk, sober, and would fail the crude roadside drug test in broad daylight. While I could explain the causes in words they'd understand to a police surgeon in a police station, I'd rather not do so.
Not to say I won't have 'a' drink, but that is it.
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Lets say you had a....fun night out say and got in at 4:30am. I assume it wouldn't be safe even to drive up later that night?
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A frequently banded about figure is that a unit of alcohol takes an hour to wear off.
So a pint of Stella would take the best part of 3 hours.
After a night out involving half a dozen Stellas (not exactly overdoing it, for me) you're theoretically not clear of it for 18 hours.
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AngryJonny (was E34kid)
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It's simple, as I see it. I just don't drink and drive. I know it sounds terribly virtuous etc. Five nights a week I have a small glass of red wine with my dinner to aid my digestion (had major stomach surgery 20 years ago) but this does not exceed 100mls. I enjoy that but when I go 'out with the lads' every Thursday night, I don't have wine, just water.
All four of us drive and meet up at a different pubs each week where four rounds of drink are bought, mine consisting of fruit juices only, the remainder drinking a total of between 1.5 to 2 pints depending on their mood etc.
I don't condone drinking and driving but I see so many people drinking quite heavily, based on my assessment. One evening I saw a chap, by himself, demolish a bottle of white wine and several beers and suspect, but can't be sure, that there was a car outside which he was probably going to drive home?
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I have followed this thread with mounting discomfort. Of course it is prudent to protect one's licence by staying on the wagon when you're in your wagon. But there's a scent of goody-goody here that I don't instinctively respect. Surely the real responsibility of a driver is to avoid loss or injury to other road users and pedestrians including of course his or her own passengers. It is dangerous or incompetent driving that causes these things, not a drink or a can of Red Bull (see the other thread on caffeine). I am with the late Auberon Waugh on this one really. If they're safe, leave them alone.
Was it a Marzotto who won an early-50s Mille Miglia in a front-engined big Ferrari, chain-smoking Havana cigars and drinking 'the best part of a bottle of brandy' en route? And Fangio used to take speed in his Pan-American road racing days.
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Be careful when drinking at home though, the measures are usually quite generous. A unit of alcohol isn't very much at all. I believe the calculations were done in the 1970's. Since then strengths of wine and beer have generally increased.
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Absolutely right, the permitted levels hardly affect most people's reactions, indeed probably improve them in many cases. The whole thing is absurdly failsafe and causes a lot of unnecessary grief. People who drive mumbling into walls and are found asleep in the wreckage are usually several times over and would have done it anyway.
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ndeed probably improve
Heard that quite often in the last 25 years !
"Honest I'm a far safer driver after a couple of drinks"
Oh yeah !
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There are in fact nervous uptight people who take driving extremely seriously and really need to loosen up a bit. I am not one of them.
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I should have added, such people would be the last to think it was OK to take a drink. And of course I wasn't talking about getting plastered, just being in a relaxed and vigilant state for once. It's difficult for some people apparently.
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Nearly all the people I know are extremely square, sane, and sensible but most seem to take the view that one pint of beer is reasonably safe. As a relatively inexperienced driver, I've often taken a more cautious approach for fear that even my completely unhindered driving may attract attention from the boys in blue on a quiet night.
I recently went for a meal with a group that included a mid-ranking police officer and his wife, herself a former PC. They drank the equivalent of a pint of lager each before deciding which one of them was going to drive home. Some of the posts here imply that even this is somewhat reckless. Are we really living in a fools' paradise by adopting the one-pint-but-no-more rule?
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I recently went for a meal with a group that included a mid-ranking police officer and his wife, herself a former PC. They drank the equivalent of a pint of lager each before deciding which one of them was going to drive home. Some of the posts here imply that even this is somewhat reckless. Are we really living in a fools' paradise by adopting the one-pint-but-no-more rule?
I think the people who abstain absolutely are making a personal decision, not stating that any alcohol at all is dangerous - although, in that one case that matters, it could be, who knows?
I personally do not touch a drop if I'm driving. There are two ways of thinking about it which have led to this stance.
1) What's the point? At least to an extent drinking is done to become inebriatred - 'merry'. One or two pints isn't going to achieve that anyway, so I might as well not drink any at all.
2) If I was in a crash, and had drunk anything at all, I would never know whether it was a contributing factor. If that crash resulted in harm to another, how could I live with the doubt over whether my drinking had caused it?
As to the 'light drinking can improve your driving' theory. Please, that's rubbish. Yes it relaxes you. It also dulls your decision making, encourages you to take risks, extends your reaction times and reduces your hand-eye coordination and motor skills. But hey, you're relaxed so you'll drive better, right?
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I have attended numerous functions where I have dined with and talked to policemen ranging from Scotland Yard Commanders to Traffic Motor Bike Cop. In buying my round I recall the drink of choice for most was soda water.
Nobody is being goody goody here - just sensible. If you want to have a pint of strong lager or a half bottle of wine and risk your licence then thats your choice, just don't criticise people who don't take that chance....
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There is,as someone has already said, a great deal of political correctness going on here. At the risk of being a little irresponsible can I simply make the point that back in 1966 when the current drink/driving laws were introduced the official advice was not to drink more than two and a half pints of regular strength beer. About ten years later, circa 1976, this mysteriously became one and a half pints and now walking past a barmaids apron with the wind in the wrong direction is quite definitely pushing your luck!
SR
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Perhaps there are a few more things to be said here. Does 80mg per ml (or is it 50 now) take the edge off yr. hand-eye coordination? Perhaps, but what are we doing here: mending a good watch or driving a motor vehicle? Seems to me your coordination would have to be quite seriously messed up to make a difference in driving. Similarly, reaction times: the whole point of learning to drive properly is to eliminate the need for quick reactions. You do this by looking down the road and in your mirrors so you always know what's going to happen, and start dealing with it before it does. The idea that your reactions have to be fine-tuned at all times is based on worst-case fantasy land. And if we accept it, why don't we have reaction time as a driving qualification? The raw difference between individuals is huge, and the same person can have widely differing reaction times depending on all sorts of factors other than drink or drugs. Nor is the 'judgement' of an adult likely to be seriously disrupted by moderate alcohol consumption. Of course individual cases differ, and anyone who finds that they become an incompetent idiot after a couple of drinks is well advised to stay off the sauce, whether driving or not.
The danger though is of gung-ho or crazed lapses of judgement by the young and inexperienced or the very nervous, not to put it more strongly than that. That in my opinion (that and the habit of driving half-asleep while more or less on the road, which might have been acquired by some in the bad old days) is why the alcohol limit was imposed, and as I said before I think it probably does more good than harm. But I find the need to protect myself from cynical policemen who might be perfectly happy to ruin my life knowing I had done nothing dangerous very tiresome.
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Perhaps the goody-goody remark may have seemed a bit gratuitous to some. I do not wish to criticise people who don't drink a drop when driving. It is as has been pointed out a personal decision, and a responsible one. It's just a bit, I don't know, grey and joyless that so many feel they have to make it. Better than worst case however, certainly. If you see them as alternatives, so be it.
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It's just a bit, I don't know, grey and joyless that so many feel they have to make it.
Why? If I wish to drink, then I don't drive. I I want to drive, then I don't drink. I can have fun either way, without any issues of doubt about my fit state to drive.
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Grey and joyless that the doubt has to be so fundamental. That people are led by propaganda to doubt their own self-awareness. Perhaps it's an inevitable result of the imposition of a permitted level, and the no-drink rule is the least stressful solution for a responsible person. Just an age thing in my case perhaps... but I find it sad, a bit nannyish. You grow up and with some difficulty become more or less mature and resposible, then the so-and-sos start treating you as a child again. But no offence to anyone. And by the way, a lot of the countries with no-drink-at-all laws have phenomenally high accident rates despite low densities. Not being drunk helps on the road, but there are more important requirements.
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Grey and joyless that the doubt has to be so fundamental. That people are led by propaganda to doubt their own self-awareness. Perhaps it's an inevitable result of the imposition of a permitted level, and the no-drink rule is the least stressful solution for a responsible person. Just an age thing in my case perhaps... but I find it sad, a bit nannyish.
But those of us who don't drink at all when driving are completely ignoring the 'nanny-state' suggestion and setting our own limits, so where's the nannying?
Talking about self-awareness, I'm perfectly aware that drunk I am less able than sober.
I find your stance a bit worrying to be honest, not because you advocate drinking a small amount and driving, but because (while you haven't explicitly stated it) some things you have said imply that you believe you can drink much more than the legal limit and still be perfectly safe.
As I say, that's only an implication I have taken from a combination of things you've said, so I apologise if it's not true, but it's a bit scarey. For that matter, I can't agree with your belief that some people can become a better driver with some alcohol in them. Not made worse, perhaps, with a small amount, but made better? And difference at all suggests a physiological effect, and if such an effect has taken place, I can't imagine it will have been for the better.
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BazzaBear: over the years I have certainly done some very scary things indeed in cars both drunk and sober - evidently completely unlike most people - but I like to think that I have become less scary and less drunk with age and experience. No one who wants to keep their licence drives about habitually over the limit. I don't.
I insist however that there are individuals, not a few, who are extremely wound up about the whole enterprise of driving. Perhaps they react more quickly but the chances of doing the wrong thing are also high. A slightly slower, un-jumpy response is more likely to be correct. That said, the effects of alcohol and other drugs on individuals are never entirely predictable, so it's a good idea if it isn't the first drink the person's ever had. But I do think there's a case to be made for some people driving better when - let's call it very lightly sedated, based on what I regard as common and dangerous faults in driving posture.
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Perhaps there are a few more things to be said here.
>>
like, for example, a human condition known as "being in denial".
for those who are not in denial, and want to research the subject, here are a few pointers:
see tinyurl.com/4depy
- from www.driveandstayalive.com
or tinyurl.com/abkoa
- from www.nhtsa.dot.gov
or www.madd.org/stats/0,1056,1115,00.html
or www.driving-abroad.info/alcohol.php which says
The general advice is never drink and drive. You are putting yourself and others in danger. However, as a responsible driver you are probably roughly aware of the amount of units of alcohol you can drink to be within the permitted limit in your country, but what happens when you go abroad?
The charts below will give you an idea of the relative legal limits in various countries.
you pays your money and makes your choice. according to the laws of the country you live in and the strength/weakness of the politicians who enact the laws ( witness the current anti-smoking laws proposed for england ).
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The problem for me is that sometimes I seem to be able to drink a bottle of the red stuff and be completely sober, and at others I have half a bottle and fall over! Same with beer, sometimes a pint goes to my head (or legs!) sometimes 3 pints doesn't. (and yes, I think age has something to do with it, and what you are used to, and whether you have eaten, and whether you have a bad day at the office etc, etc) So my rule is, pint of shandy and that's it. Or even better, get a (sober) mate to drive, or get a taxi - it's cheaper in the long run - both in terms of money and, should anything happen, a lifetime of guilty conscience (and increased , or no, insurance) It just ain't worth drinking and driving!
Now, how do I give up smoking my little cigars - I've tried, honest!
--
Phil
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----Now, how do I give up smoking my little cigars - I've tried, honest!-----
Phil - Its easy - Throw the horrible nasty little things away and spend some money on decent sized ones, preferably Cuban....rolled on the thigh of a sultry Havana maiden.
They go beautifully with the port or brandy after a good meal - (when I'm not driving of course.)
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"rolled on the thigh of a sultry Havana maiden."
Me or the cigar?
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Phil
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Phil,
My uncle's just brought me back 5 from Cuba. I could be persuaded to part with one of the remaining 3. For a modest fee of course ;-)
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"brought me back 5 from Cuba"
sultry Havana maidens or cigars??
I'll stop there, feel an angry mod approaching!
--
Phil
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"could be persuaded to part with one of the remaining 3."
Yes please! You know my address! Fee negotiable after consumption?? (and after the port or brandy recommended by helicopter??)
Enjoy them yourself Adam - probably wasted on a St Bruno and cheap cigar smoker like me (cheap in Belgium, bloomin expensive in my local tobacconist!!)
--
Phil
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----Now, how do I give up smoking my little cigars - I've tried, honest!----- Phil - Its easy - Throw the horrible nasty little things away and spend some money on decent sized ones, preferably Cuban....rolled on the thigh of a sultry Havana maiden. They go beautifully with the port or brandy after a good meal - (when I'm not driving of course.)
Oh for heaven's sake. Now nicotine, that really gives you the shakes. A whole Havana cigar is... a bit much. Sultry maiden DNA doesn't help. By the way, Barzotto was only smoking cigarettes. But the brandy was barandy.
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Oh, and what I really wanted to say was: flying a helicopter unlike driving a car is strongly counter-intuitive (until you get used to it of course). So in the case of helicopters perhaps the cautious line is the correct one.
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With the drink-driving law as it is, one receives a mandatory one year disqualification if one is over the 80mg limit, yet if one is just under the limit one is completely in the clear.
I wouldn't change the penalty for exceeding the 80mg limit but I'd add a lower offence threshold of 40mg/100ml, with 3 penalty points and a fine.
The current situation is akin to if the motorway speed limit was, say, 120mph but doing 121 mph would earn a one year disqualification
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