Drinking and Driving

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Great points being made here! If you are going to drink, make sure you have a designated driver!!! From a uk site...

How to work out the alcohol units in your drink

Are you sure you're under the limit?


Do you know exactly how much you can drink without going over the driving limit?


You could be in for a shock, warns a county road safety expert.


A new survey by the RAC has revealed that 80 per cent of drivers have no idea what constitutes one unit of alcohol.
Among the seven million people happy to drive after drinking beer, wine or spirits, the majority consume double the number of alcohol units they think they have, the survey of 800 people claimed.


Now Garry Handley, road safety team leader at Gloucestershire County Council, is calling for information on alcohol content and how to work calculate safe drinking limits to be more widely available to improve public awareness of the risks.


He says: "It's extremely worrying when people are consuming alcohol and they don't truthfully know what they are taking.

"People don't understand drinking and driving anyway and the law itself when you see it written down means very little when you are at a bar purchasing alcohol and drinking it."

"I would like to see more information in pubs, better labelling on drink products in the supermarket and schools involved because alcohol is widely consumed. "Let's start to look at it properly so people can make informed choices." The RAC survey found one large glass of wine or a pint of premium lager could make a driver fail a breathalyser.

Mr Handley warns: "There used to be a rule of thumb, although it is a myth, that two pints of beer is OK if you are driving but that clearly is nonsense.

"It varies depending on our weight, your gender, and how you are feeling - and many beers have different amounts of alcohol in them so it's important to understand what you are consuming if you are trying to keep within the law and keep safe.


"Over the last 20 years we have seen beer increase in strength, the fashion for young people to consume alcopops and strong continental lagers.

"You might know the volume of what you are drinking - a pint or a bottle - but not its strength as each contains different strengths of alcohol and it is the strength that impairs a driver's ability and puts them at risk."

Tolerance

Wine-drinkers, too, could be at risk, he points out.
"At one time wine would be about 8% alcohol by volume in a fairly small glass - now it can be a 175ml glass and it can be as high as 13% and people can find they are being arrested without knowing they have consumed over the limit.

"It would certainly put a female driver over because they have a different tolerance to men."


Mr Handley points out that deliberate drink drivers make up the minority of those convicted.


"Many who listen to myths they hear in the pub are caught the following day because they don't realise how long it takes alcohol to be released from the body.
"There is a great deal of misinformation."
Mr Handley says safest thing is not to drink and drive at all.
"Let's cut out all this complicated science and avoid it completely, bearing in mind that any amount of alcohol can impair your driving.
"If you drink, don't drive, has always been our advice - but getting the consumer to understand what they are drinking would be a good starting point."