I’m not condoning either, and understanding what you are driving at (pun intended), but I’m not convinced sweeping generalisations like that are particularly helpful.

Driving home through town at night, you encounter another driver at double the limit. Would you rather it was,

a) The Stig at double the speed limit, or

b) George Best at double the blood alcohol limit?

I’d say b), because the speed limit in town is 30mph so double that would be 60mph, which would be terrifying

I got followed out of the Watermill at Ings after a Wednesday night ride in the Lakes and pulled over in a “summer road safety campaign”

WPC – Have you had a drink?
Me – Yes
WP – When did you have it and how many?
Me – I’d just finished my second pint and left the pub at closing time.
WPC – I will need to breathalyse you but I need to wait half an hour from the time of your last drink.
Me – Oh well looks like we are going to be sitting here for a while.
WPC – OK I can do a breath test now and if you fail we can wiat until half an hour and then test you again and see the result?
Me – Great
WPC – Blow into this please
Me – Puff
WPC – OK (looks at digital display) its 12 microgrammes so you are all clear.
Me – Thanks very much and good night!

So two pints of weak ale is well under the limit.

Interestingly a few years back a motorcycle magazine did a comparisson between different factors that affect your ability to ride. Drink, drugs, lack of sleep and cold. All had an affect but being very cold was the one that was most surprising with such a high impariment of function and performance. Similarly being tired was also quite an impairment. The results for drinking and drugs were more varied due to how different people cope and react etc. The results for combinations were also very interesting.

All this disucssion would be much more straight forward if there was a zero limit. Then people would at least know exactly where they stood.

A good story and some interesting points there tomaso. It throws up two questions:

1. Why the half hour wait?

2. What was the time period over which you had drunk your weak ales? (By ‘weak’ I’m assuming somewhere around the 3.8% ABV mark)

I think the delay is to enable alcohol lingering in your mouth to go and for the alcohol you’ve drunk to be absorbed by your blood so that it will register from the deep lung breath you need to breath into a breathalyser. By the time she actually offered to do the breath test it had been 20 minutes since I’d drunk so I don’t think another 10 minutes would’ve made too much difference.

The time period for drinking was under an hour to sip two 3.2-3.8% ales and eat some salty snacks after a vigerous 2.5 hour bike ride. I’m 6 foot 2 and weigh about 14 odd stone.

The odd thing in Luxembourg is it’s not yet socially unacceptable to drink drive. At my first Xmas party here, the organiser read out a list of drink drive check locations so people could avoid them.

zero.

Some excellent datums there, thanks for that!

Depending on my tipple:

or

RM.

Here comes the science

Further to Tomaso’s post, a friend of mine got pulled just after consuming 2 1/2 pints of london pride and sat waiting for his B test wishing to God he hadn’t had that half! Anyway, when they tested him, he showed about 15mgs, so well under.

Speeding poses a much greater risk than driving after a couple of pints.

But only if you’re driving a car with over 170 BHP…

Nil for me, find it kinda important to be sober when driving a ton of metal along a public road.

Zero for me. I can sometimes feel mullered on 1 pint, so am certain that the legal limit is far too high for me.

Some days I can take my beer better than others, so if driving I don’t drink and if drinking I don’t drive… But if riding home (pavement or trails) or running (as biking), then don’t give it a second thought and drink as I feel.

I have often wondered if they couldn’t have some sort of driving simulator at the local police station that they could out you on and see if you were fit to drive or not . Obviously you would have to fail a breath test first .

Zero. The thought of drinking anything then getting behind the wheel of a car scares me witless (not that there’s many wits to go). Even if I wasn’t at fault in an accident it would always play on my mind.

None. I did as a younger and stupider person, but not now, not for years.

1 x 330ml bottle over an evening, I know I could legally drink a bit more but I don’t see the point.

If they have a decent non-alcoholic beer I’ll have that.

Failing that, a pint of bitter shandy or nothing.

To be honest, i’ll avoid the pub if I know I have to drive.

when younger I may have been rather silly. Can think of several occasions when not driving (or, worse, riding bike) would have been better option.

Tend to not drink or in minority of cases, have one pint. But yes if I have one it’s usually too tasty, hence try not to..

See, that’s where motorbikes are great… Like many people I had stupid moments in my youth, and one thing I learned is, motorbikes don’t tolerate impaired judgement and balance, I couldn’t even get the ****ing thing off its sidestand without crashing but I could probably have driven a car into a busfull of nuns.

I will have a low %beer or a 330ml bottle with a meal, no more.

If im not eating or only having a snake I wont drink.

I was once stopped, after leaving a pub car park. I was asked if I had had a drink, I answered yes,test came back negative, waited 30 mins b test negative. I was then asked what I had had to drink my answer lemonade. As a young 18 year old I didn’t realise the consequence of this and was soon arrested and taken to the station for wasting police time. I had a stern talking to and was released later no charges.

if im having more than 2, im walking or riding home or leaving the car in favour of a taxi..

regularly ride home having drunk 6/7/8 pints

in my early twenties i was pulled having drunk 5 pints of stella in about three hours straight from work, having eaten no food all day and weighing 10st wet through – i was significantly in the green.

If im not eating or only having a snake I wont drink.

Eating snakes of course has a completely different set of dangers associated with it.

There was a time in my life when I loved a drink.Friday night, Saturday night in the pub drinking 7 or 8 pints. 3 years ago I got sick.Really shitty sick.
Now I have to take medication for this illness which I will take until the day I die.
I can’t drink on these pills. Honestly lack of alcohol has made no difference to my life.
If I can do it that long then knowing I won’t be drinking again I’m sue having to drink J20 once in a while when they’re driving won’t be too much of an issue.
If it is they’re a cock.

Further to the ‘how much can you drink before you fail a breath test’ discussions. Mrs Daz often brings a breathalyzer home from work (apparently they’re a higher spec and more accurate than the ones the cops use), and we have conducted various experiments. We found:

1. You could drink up to 6 pints and not be over the limit as long as you left it 5-10 mins since your last drink before you breathalysed (see no. 3)

2. Smoking a cigarette immediately cuts the reading by about 50%.

3. Breathalysing immediately after a drink makes the reading much higher.

4. No one who tried it was over the legal limit after drinking 4 pints (without cigarettes, and leaving a decent gap after your last drink)

I’m not claiming these results are at all scientific or reliable, but they’re interesting all the same.

dazh – if true that is bloomin worrying

I know a couple of people who have lost their licences for being about twice over the limit.
By their own admission they drank shit loads.
I am a firm believer that anyone who reckons they lost their licence after having two pints is a complete bullshitter.

2 Pints of ordinary bitter, less than 4%

Last wedding we went to, had 4 pints of Wainrights bitter shandy, was nice drink.

Might be me remembering incorrectly, but I’m sure there was a case mentioned on here of some bloke being breathalised on the way from from work at five, and he lost his licence because he was still other the limit from the night before. That must have been some kind of drinkin’ he got on, the night before.

Mrs Daz often brings a breathalyzer home from work (apparently they’re a higher spec and more accurate than the ones the cops use)

Where does she work ?

Where does she work ?

She’s a drug worker. She has to breathalize the alcoholics before handing out drugs which could kill them if mixed with alcohol, which is why they have testing machines which are more accurate than those used by the police.

That is quite an interesting post Daz.

Personally, I’ve always wondered on these police interceptor shows, why all the people that are so pissed they’re barely upright, or just clearly paralytic “were found to be nearly 3 times over the legal limit”.

So, 6 beers or so, right?

My arse!

If I’m in the pub none, over a meal I may a one glass of wine to start with them move to sparkling water.

So, 6 beers or so, right?

My arse!

6 pints was the maximum we could get it under the limit even with smoking etc. The more worrying thing is how much we had to drink to get over the limit without smoking, and there were 4 of us all testing ourselves as we went.

Also of course the police do blood tests to prove the blood-alcohol levels, the breath test is just an indicator. I suspect if a cop came across someone stinking of booze and slurring their words, they’d still be nicked even if the machine came up negative, which is why no one should think they can get away with drinking more if they smoke a fag before getting in the car. Personally I reckon the US style drunkenness tests are a more reliable indicator than using a breathalyzer.

The breathalyser test is all about a reading taken when the person is pulled over, and its only an indicator for the policeman to confirm his suspicions – the real test is done back at the station via blood analysis – I don’t think anyone ever got banned on the strength of a breathalyser test – they also have to test positive back at the station. Only the results of a blood test are admissible in court (not speaking from experience).

I personally will have 1 pint of ‘normal’ strength beer (i.e. less than 4%). I won’t touch the strong beer if i’m driving and often will just have a shandy or a soft drink. But that’s just the limits I impose on myself – I feel I could have 2 pints of normal strength beer and still drive, but I don’t want to push myself anywhere near close to the limit just in case (assuming the limit is still 4 units). Incidentally there is all sorts of research that shows that if you’ve got a cold or man-flu, hay fever, have taken some strong painkillers, are really tired or driving just after a big dinner, using your mobile phone, smoking, or just old, then you’re driving is impaired to the level that is equivalent to a ‘normal person’ (whatever that means or how its established) having drank way over the legal limit. Go-on, i’m not suggesting that we should relax the rules on drink driving or go soft on it in any way, but on the other hand I don’t think a zero limit is fair or sensible. There are many millions of people out there who are perfectly responsible and sensible and can have a pint on the way home from work, or at lunchtime, and drive afterwards.

And I would dob anyone in who was pissed if I saw them get into a car. I don’t care if they’re a friend, family member or a total stranger. I’d warn them before hand and give them an opportunity to reconsider, but i’d definitely dob them in. All this nonsense about not ‘Grassing people up’… are people really serious? Do some people really believe in that or is it just tough talk? Do they think they’re living in an episode of Eastenders or stuck in a Guy Richie movie or something?

With a meal, 1 pint of normal strength larger, if I know I’ve eaten a lot soon before, 1 pint.

Otherwise one pint of shandy, or often, none.

But really, should always be none. I too would probably want more if I had one, so best leave it alone! Living 7 miles from my ‘local’ means I now just don’t go since I moved from the village where the pub is, sad.

the real test is done back at the station via blood analysis – I don’t think anyone ever got banned on the strength of a breathalyser test – they also have to test positive back at the station. Only the results of a blood test are admissible in court

I don’t think that is correct, I believe they use breathalysers in the station as well, just more accurate ones.

I seem to remember one of the motoring shows laying out a course for someone to complete, repeating the exercise every half hour after consuming a unit of alcohol.
I seem to remember that even after one unit the chap’s driving was slightly impaired and it got steadily worse as the experiment went on.

That’s reduced ability after half a pint’s worth. 💡