New research on Drink-drive dangers

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Source: Auto Express

New campaign calls for the complete eradication of drink driving

New research reveals that British drivers are ignoring warnings about the dangers of drink driving. Nearly two thirds (60 per cent) of British motorists believe that they are perfectly safe to drink and drive, according to a new study commissioned by Privilege Insurance.

The study also suggests that many motorists may be flouting the law and endangering lives by taking to the road after exceeding the legal limit – as nearly ten per cent of those polled insisted that they felt safe to drive after drinking more than the permitted amount.

The Government’s drink drive campaign launched on 1 December 2006 and is intended to hammer home the dangers of drink driving to members of the public – especially young men.
 
WTH? You guys are allowed to drink and drive? With a "permitted" amount? Now it makes some sense why pedestrians get nailed all the time in Europe.

Sorry, but what is this limit? Anything more than a beer is absurd. Period.
 
Azuremen
WTH? You guys are allowed to drink and drive? With a "permitted" amount? Now it makes some sense why pedestrians get nailed all the time in Europe.
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You've got a legal limit in the US as well, you know.

The legal limit in the United Kingdom is 80 milligrams of alcohol for every 100 millilitres of blood in the body
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You can't say how many drinks that is as it depends on the drink and the person.

Another point, the UK is not Europe. We have a legal limit. Most other European countries have a lower limit than we do, and some have a blood/alcohol limit of 0.2
 
The UK has some of the highest drink-drive limits in Europe at 0.8%.

And for comparison, is 10 times that of America, 0.08%.
 
ExigeExcel
The UK has some of the highest drink-drive limits in Europe at 0.8%.

And for comparison, is 10 times that of America, 0.08%.
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0.8 milligrams vs 0.08 gram? I might not be good at maths, but that looks pretty similar to me.
 
daan
0.8 milligrams vs 0.08 gram? I might not be good at maths, but that looks pretty similar to me.
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My mistake.

I used Wikipedia and thought that because Wikipedia is the be all and end all of all debates and is the greatest thing invented and is so awesome it can give you an orgasm in 5 seconds flat, that all the amounts were percentages.
 
Germany had 0,8 tenth of a percent of pure alcohol per litre of blood, now has 0,5. That's about a glass of beer, maybe two smaller ones for the occasional drinker. If you ask me, it should be lowered to 0,0. 0,5 gives you this sense of "I'm okay if I drink a bit", and some just can't stop if they have started.

Regards
the Interceptor
 
ExigeExcel
No, you've seen people blow an amount so low it can't be measured by the machine. However, it is not an exact 0.00
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Exactly! But I saw people blow into the machine, and it displayed a 0.0. So you can blow a 0.0, which doesn't mean that you have no alcohol in you whatsoever.

[/smartass] :D
 
the Interceptor
Exactly! But I saw people blow into the machine, and it displayed a 0.0. So you can blow a 0.0, which doesn't mean that you have no alcohol in you whatsoever.

[/smartass] :D
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Not on the BIG copshop machine. On the little handhelds, maybe.
 
I heard a story about a guy whom ate too much chocolate. He had to blow and was found drunk.
 
I never drink if im going to drive... I make it a rule because there is no way im going to have just one or two and take the risk... but seriously the UK has a really bad problem with this! and the limit is already way higher than other countries!

Ive heard many an ambulance siren over the last few days...

Funnily enough a new study today states you are far likely to suffer serious brain injury in an accident if you have a SMALL amount of alcohol in your body at the time... Basically it helps numb your natural bodys reaction to swell the brain which can cause brain damage and death... however this is not a licence to say drinking and driving is good after all!!

read here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6190391.stm

Robin
 
I'm waiting for the day when having even one drink and then driving becomes illegal as i'm very very anti-drink driving.
I happen to be teetotal now but back in my drinking days, I never drank alcohol prior to driving.
People also forget about the next morning as well - if you get steaming drunk, please please don't drive the next morning as your blood alcohol levels can actually take up to 24 hours to drop below the legal limit if it's been a particularly hard session :nervous:
 
GTPlant
I'm waiting for the day when having even one drink and then driving becomes illegal as i'm very very anti-drink driving.
I happen to be teetotal now but back in my drinking days, I never drank alcohol prior to driving.
People also forget about the next morning as well - if you get steaming drunk, please please don't drive the next morning as your blood alcohol levels can actually take up to 24 hours to drop below the legal limit if it's been a particularly hard session :nervous:
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Yep - at least 1 hour per unit "imbibed", folks, to allow it to pass from your body. It's a good rule of thumb, but you still can't be totally sure of that.

I don't partake of the sauce until I'm absolutely sure I don't have to drive again that day.
 
I will have one or two beers if im staying at the venue for a good couple hours at the beginning, so once the time comes to go home im good to drive. I never get drunk so I dont have to worry about not being able to stop drinking as I dont have much interest in alcohol.
 
If I'm expected to drive again the same day I tend not to have any alcaholic drinks at all normally. Occasionally I'll have one, or if theres going to be a few hours before I get back behind the wheel I might have two, maybe. But as a general rule I don't drink before I drive. Which for me is a big deal because unlike Poverty here, I enjoy a good drink, not to get drunk. But I really enjoy a nice drink of beer, larger or cider. Especially on a hot day.
 
daan, I am aware the US has a legal limit. And I think how much it is is stupid.

When I did drink, I would not touch anything several hours before driving. And I always made sure I was the DD, so that none of my less intelligent friends would bother with trying to drive drunk.
 
ExigeExcel
I don't know how true it is, but there loads of urban legends regarding drink driving tests.
TsLeng
Chocolates with liquor inside maybe...
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Nope and the story is true (I think). He ate too much chocolate which started to ferment in his intestine which creates alcohol. This alcohol got into his blood. I don't how much chocolate you need to eat to get that result.
 
Drinking and driving is bad, mmkay? I’ll never touch a drink unless I’m sure I won’t be driving again that night.
 
kikie
I heard a story about a guy whom ate too much chocolate. He had to blow and was found drunk.
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There was a woman in the UK who got pulled over and was over the limit slightly, she said she hadn't had any alcaholic drinks that day, but she'd been to a wedding and had some cake that had alcahol in it. She ended up being let off becuase she was able to get a piece of the cake which as it turned out, had quite a lot of a lcahol in it for a cake. That one is true, but if you do get pulled over and try that excuse, don't tihnk your automatically off, she only got off because of witnesses and providing a piece of the cake.
 
live4speed
There was a woman in the UK who got pulled over and was over the limit slightly, she said she hadn't had any alcaholic drinks that day, but she'd been to a wedding and had some cake that had alcahol in it. She ended up being let off becuase she was able to get a piece of the cake which as it turned out, had quite a lot of a lcahol in it for a cake. That one is true, but if you do get pulled over and try that excuse, don't tihnk your automatically off, she only got off because of witnesses and providing a piece of the cake.
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That's bribery...
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No, she didn't bribe the police with cake, she provided a piece of the cake as evidence. She was let off on the grounds that she was unable to measure how much alcahol she was consuming and that it was only beause the cake had unusually high levels of alcahol in it that she was actually over the limit.
 
Azuremen
daan, I am aware the US has a legal limit. And I think how much it is is stupid.
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And how it's the same as the UK's...

In 2003, 17,013 people died and more than 500,000 were injured in the US as a result of what were classed as "alcohol-related accidents" (57 deaths per million population and 1,668 injuries per million population). For the same period in the UK there were 580 deaths and 18,990 injuries in similar situations (9.7 deaths per million and 317 injuries per million).

So the question that arises from that is why, with the same "legal limit" for driving after drinking, are there more than 5 times as many deaths and injuries from drink-driving per head of population in the US than there are in the UK? And it's not because the average American drives 5 times further each year than the average Brit - because they don't.


Drink-driving seems to be a declining problem in the UK - though drugged-driving and sleep-driving are not on the downturn.
 

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