Drink driving - The facts please

**NinjaNanna** · 17th December 2007, 15:27

Seeing as a mod has dropped this post into PD along with a whole thread - here it is again - resurrected as you might say.

In my opinion, one thing NZ does a piss poor job of is educating drivers regarding the number of drinks they can safely consume and stay under the legal limit.

In Australia anybody who has sat their license in the last 12 years knows full well that an average male can drink 2 Standard Drinks in the first hour then 1 drink every hour after that and stay below the legal limit of 0.05

For women they can only have 1 Standard Drink every hour and still be ok to drive - due to their lower metabolism.

Of course this varies slightly from person to person but works well enough to be promoted by the Government as a general guideline.

As far as I'm concerned when pouring your own drinks, Wine and Spirits are a very risky drink to be consuming as it is very difficult to accurately measure 1 Standard drink and far too easy to over consume.

Generally a bottle of wine is 8 standard drinks, so if the woman in the afore mentioned thread is telling the truth and she poured out 1/2 bottle of wine at the end of the night and still blew over the limit 4hrs after starting drinking, then I think she was either:

a) very unlucky and has a very poor tolerance to alchohol (metabolism)

or

b) some ill advised friend topped up her drink from a different bottle.

Also it is a misconception that food helps with alcohol absorbtion it doesn't the food just tells the body to start speeding up it metabolic process inorder to digest the food and the alcohol - the only thing that helps with removing the alchohol is TIME - as it is directly linked to the liver and kidneys ability to filter it from your blood after digestion.

One thing that really annoys me is that I have been unable to truely work out what the legal limit in NZ is, older people tell me its 0.08 (which is slightly higher than Aust) but everything I find on the NET and the road code refers to a concentration of 400??? and search as I might I cannot find any official guidelines to alchohol consumption and driving.

Anyway this all just serves to support my view that NZ'rs have no friggin idea how much they can drink before driving (this is only a reference to the legal limit not ability to drive safely and I put myself in this same catagory) so for now I will stick to my teachings from Australia and hope I don't get caught out by my own ignorance.

I personally see this as a very pertinant topic during the festive season so:

Please keep this thread on topic

and only add to or refute this thread if you are postive about the information that you are posting.

Hopefully some of our resident Medical Professionals, Police Officers or Legal Eagles may be along shortly to enlighten us all.

PS sorry if this has all been dealt with in the past, but then again this close to Christmas it doesn't hurt to raise the issue again does it!

Mods any chance we can make this sticky until after the Christmas Period is finished?

Cheers All and a Merry Christmas

NN

**Blue Velvet** · 17th December 2007, 15:37

ALAC (Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand) has info on their web site:

http://www.alcohol.org.nz/AlcoholIntroduction.aspx

http://www.alac.org.nz/WhatsInAStandardDrink.aspx

http://www.alac.org.nz/DrinkingAndDriving.aspx

**Usarka** · 17th December 2007, 15:54

huh, couldn't find any guidelines on drinks per hour (was i not looking hard enough?)

Probably too scared that people will follow them, still be over and use it as an excuse. Education can be a bad thing you know, like with driving skills.....

Though i did think it was standard knowledge. 2 standards first hour, 1 every hour after that (for men). Check the label of the bottle.

If anyone is drinking piss and driving without knowing the legal limits and their own tolerance then more fool them....

**MSTRS:Me** · 17th December 2007, 15:58

Originally Posted by NinjaNanna

... people tell me its 0.008 ..... 400??? .

The 0.008 refers to blood/alcohol level. The 400 refers to the EBA (breath test).

**NinjaNanna** · 17th December 2007, 16:04

MSTRS shone the light that I needed

NZ Current Legal Limits

Drivers under 20 years - 150mcg breath or 30mg blood;
Drivers over 20 years - 400mcg breath or 80mg blood.

A blood test measures the number of milligrams of alcohol (mgs) per 100 millilitres (mls) of blood.

Quoted from http://www.alac.org.nz/DrinkingAndDriving.aspx
thanks Blue Velvet

Australian BAC - Current Legal Limits

The legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit is 0.05. This means that a driver’s body must contain less than 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.

Quoted from http://www.tacsafety.com.au/jsp/cont...ull&pageID=145

Driving

The amount of alcohol in the blood is called the Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC). BAC is measured by the number of grams of alcohol in 100mL of blood.

Your BAC depends on:

how much alcohol is consumed
what type of alcoholic drink is consumed
how fast the alcoholic drink is consumed
the amount of food in the stomach
other factors such as gender, body size, mood and health.

In Western Australia, it is illegal to drive a motor vehicle when your Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) is 0.05% or greater (or 0.02% and above for probationary drivers and some convicted drink drivers for a three-year period upon reissue of their license). Keeping your BAC level below 0.05% not only keeps you within the law, but keeps you and other road users safer.

If you decide to drink and drive:

Men should have no more than two standard drinks in the first hour and then no more than one standard drink per hour after that.

Women should have no more than one standard drink in the first hour and one standard drink per hour after that.

This is a guide only as your BAC will depend greatly on the factors described above. For more information on alcohol and driving go to The Office of Road Safety.

Quoted from http://www.dao.health.wa.gov.au/Stru...eContentMode=1

I also urge you to check this site for standard drink information

**The Pastor** · 17th December 2007, 16:28

i thought it was 3 standard drinks then 1 an hour.

Pretty much I drink 1/hr anyways, so even after a 6 beers i'll still drive/ ride (its been over 6hrs). usally ends up being 6 beers over like 10hrs anyways.

**NinjaNanna** · 17th December 2007, 16:34

Originally Posted by renegade master

i thought it was 3 standard drinks then 1 an hour.

I can only comment on what is officially supported in Australia to stay below 0.05%.

Looking at the numbers these suggest that 3 drinks in NZ would be ok for the average male. BUT THAT IS ONLY IF THE BAC WORKS ON A LINEAR SCALE I do not know for certain if this is the case or not!!!!

**Mom** · 17th December 2007, 16:35

My advice, be very careful using the guidelines as a firm "she'll be right"

Many factors affect the absorbsion of alcohol, dehydration is a good example. For women too, the size you are can really affect how much you can safely consume before being over limit, small bodies means smaller amount to tip the balance. Stress also plays a big part in the equation.

**tipper** · 17th December 2007, 16:38

Originally Posted by renegade master

i thought it was 3 standard drinks then 1 an hour.

I have tried this at a pissup actually at a Police Station, and it does seem to work. After a whole night 'on the booze' about a drink per hour, i still blew under.

**ManDownUnder** · 17th December 2007, 16:40

A personal pissing off point is the absolute limits imposed by the law... none of which can accurately be determined by the individual involved.

It's all academic anyway because if you think you could be approaching the limit you should have stopped long ago.

**Blue Velvet** · 18th December 2007, 08:22

Originally Posted by scracha

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4327221a6579....lnews_20071217

Over 1%. Cripes...round here at 11pm it must be at least 25%.

The stupid cow who was over the limit when she drove to collect her husband from the checkpoint must surely get the dumbass award of the week.

How to drink properly

http://www.erie.gov/stopdwi/bac_calculator.asp
(ounces and pounds, so uh yeah so urm, cope)

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...06&postcount=1

**NinjaNanna** · 18th December 2007, 08:26

One of the things I have always struggled with is knowing how many standard drinks I'm having when drinking Tap Beer at the pub.

It seems every pub you go to (internationally) the glass sizes are called something else (pots, pints, middies, schooners, 10oz , 12oz, etc, etc).

What I think would be very helpful is a Java App that you could run on your mobile phone that calculates the Standard Drink by inputing the Alcohol Content (3.0-5.5%) and the Size of the Glass in MLs.

Do we have any Java Programmers out there that could write this little app?

**Finn** · 18th December 2007, 08:37

Here are the facts. Much less than 10% of the deaths on our roads are caused by drink drivers. This 10% also conveniently includes people that had a single beer before removing themselves from the gene pool.

So I conclude that it's all the sober people on the roads that are causing all the fatalities (over 90%).

You know what to do if you want to survive this Christmas. Drink and Drive. If you don't, you're a bloody killer.

**avgas** · 18th December 2007, 08:40

Do the old reaction test, get a friend to drop a ruler at the start of the night. See where you grab it. If your reactions are more than +3cm worse - i wouldnt ride home.
If you cant handle gravity, what do you think 200kph on a 200kg object is going to feel like.