To think when they say 'she was 4 times the drink drive limit' its not actually that much?

[OHforDUCKScake]

When reading about someone so drunk they were passing out and they were '4 times the drink drive limit' its not that much surely?

A pint is the limit? So its about 4 pints?
Thats not passing out amounts or am I pisshead?

(This has nothing to do with anyone actually driving.)

Well said vicar.

And someone drinking one glass of wine an hour would not give a negative reading. The one hour thing is an estimate. If I am drinking I calculate the hours from when I stopped drinking. So if I had 12 units and stopped drinking at 1am, I would not even consider driving until well after 1pm - just to be sure!

I dont drink often but if I do I am hungover the next day and feel crap so I dont drive the next day as although I may be legally under the limit later in the afternoon I dont feel my reactions are as good so wouldn't risk it. It's just not worth it.

I just used that calculator for me the last time I was on a night out and the level it came up with puts me in the "death is possible" category. I was fine, remember everything and got home (in a taxi!) perfectly safely. I was also one of the lightest drinkers in the group, and no one was passing out or anything like that. I think they completely underestimate how much alcohol would be needed to cause immediate problems in the majority of people.

Disclaimer: I know it's not sensible to drink that much at once etc, and I would never drive after drinking anything alcoholic, let alone the amount on a clubbing night out, I'm not that stupid or selfish.

It surely depends on how used you are to drinking. Someone who drinks a lot regularly wouldn't be half as pissed as someone who never drinks.

It surely depends on how used you are to drinking. Someone who drinks a lot regularly wouldn't be half as pissed as someone who never drinks.

Depends if she necked them or not

Quite possibly, a lot of the people I know go out several times a week and I don't bother trying to keep up. I know from experience as a teenager that ends badly!

Sometimes it sounds worse than it is I think. I got a level of 0.32 from 7 drinks over 3 hours, which doesn't sound that much to me for a one off.

It is all about timing.
I might drink a bottle of wine in the course of a day, (3 units at lunch and 7 between the hours of 6 and 11) and although I'd be definitely pissed, and over the limit, I wouldn't be passing out drunk, and at no time would I be 4 times over the limit.

But if I necked that bottle in an hour I would be paralytic, probably stomach-pumpingly poisoned.

YABU

Are you a bit of a lush?

But that's precisely the point.

People did used to judge whether or not they were fit to drive based on whether they'd had a lot to drink or were drunk. Now we know it's a shite way of assessing things, so we have the drink drive limits instead.

They're not intended to be a measure of how pissed-to-the-eyeballs you are (though obviously they will register that): they're a measure of whether you're fit to drive, which happens long before you're pissed and, for many people, isn't really possible to gauge by just thinking 'how do I feel'.

4 times over the limit is huge. It is substantially over the level at which courts are advised to send people to prison. I have only represented 5 people in 10 years who were at this level or higher.

Forensics show that the body processes one unit per hour. Alcohol only hits the system after one hour from starting drinking. It is from the hour after that that the alcohol starts to process.

So a bottle of wine @ 14% volume could give a positive reading at 01.00 whereas a bottle @12% could give a negative reading.

I don't understand why anyone at all would risk drinking ANYTHING before driving - screw all that 'ahh a glass or two is fine' crap.

lrdthefeminisitdragon has it.

its not about if your pissed, or not pissed.

its about whether or not you are under, or over, the legal limit when you get into the car and start the engine up.

you can also be locked up for being unfit through drink or drugs - you could theoretically be locked up for that even if you are under the legal limit - the effects of alcohol are different for different people.

we have all bases covered. if you are too pissed to drive and its obvious, you would get locked up Section 4 (unfit through drink or drugs)

a breath test is just an aid to determining if someone has had too much to drink to drive.

if someone is totally unfit i do not waste time with a breath test - they get locked up for S4, because the custody procedure is the bit that is evidential for a court. not the roadside breath test.

hth

Boak, you do know the thread is not about driving when drunk, don't you?

Vicar, we get that, honestly. But the problem is, for many people their "limit" for driving is half a lager. So 3x the limit implies about 3 half lagers - no mroe than 3 pints, surely, as an extreme. So when they say "she was staggering in the road and falling over in front of the traffic, she was three times the legal driving limit" in an effort to impress on you how much she had drank, well it maybe just doesnt seem that much.

What I am trying to say is your blood alcohol level must be related to how much youve drank!

Oh, I see what you mean SPB - in a way that undermines the message, doesn't it? Because then people will think 3x the limit means 'totally incapable'.

I suspect what is happening is, when drink drive limits were introduced, and when all those very hard-hitting campaigns about not drinking and driving started, they had a shock value and people didn't want to risk it because they knew they weren't sure what the limit would be.

Now people are more used to it and trying to second-guess the system again.

It worries me because it's the sort of logic my dad will constantly apply to it - it's never used by him for any other purpose than to justify having another drink before claiming he's fit to drive.

Hadnt really thought of that, I suppose so. I just mean people try to guess what the "limit" must be. I'm sure for me it's under a pint. So 3x the limit would be 3 pints max. I'd have given up on driving a long time before, but I'd still be upright, walking, carrying on a conversation.
But...to have alcohol levels equivalent to 3 pints in your system at the point of testing means much more has actually been consumed. I think that's the difference.

I follow.

Ish. I'm not good with working all this out.

This is why I can't think and drive.

I am a crap driver but a good drinker.

shriek, I'm aware of that, but it's about drink driving limits, and my point was that I think the limit should be a very, very small amount.

If they're not driving, that's their lookout.

I think there 'limit' for driving, however, should be zero. AND, that drug driving needs to be far, far more enforced.

One of my cousins was pulled over in the US for drug-driving (meth amphetimine) and being in possession with enough that it was intent to supply.

This is what ended her 22-year-old drug habit and thankfully no one but her was hurt, but it's a real problem that needs as much attention as drink-driving.

fair enough. But the thread is about scaling up the current "limit" to explain why people are steaming drunk

but getting drunk is all relative - i can happily and easily drink a full bottle of wine without looking like i have any effects at all. (yes i know!)

one of my friends gets pissed on a glass.

its all relative. saying someone was 3x the limit means that the measured alcohol in their system was 3 times more than the legal limit - it doesnt give any indication of how drunk they were.

but that shouldnt matter - the legal limit is the limit - whether or not they looked pissed or not.

im not quite sure im getting the argument?