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Drink/Drunk/Drunken Driving

furie

furie

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I'm going to quote Tay here, but this isn't a witch hunt, please read the rest of the post:

LiveForTheLaunch said:
Yay for Jordan :D It always feels good to do something nice. I'm guilty of the drunk driving thing, but it's hard because downtown is like a 20 minute drive away
Click to expand...

Now, the immediate reaction is "OMG, how can you be so irresponsible and reckless?"

However, as much as I disagree with a very blatant "I'm off out, and stuff it, I know I'll have to drive home drunk" attitude (I don't drink at all where my car is concerned), it would be hypocritical.

I've almost certainly driven drunk, and a lot of other people here probably have too, despite leaving the car at home.

It takes (all this is roughly) an hour for each unit of alcohol to be ejected from your system, to a maximum of about 16-20 units per 24 hours. So if you have 5 pints of standard beer (say Carling or something up to 4%) starting at 9:00 p.m. and finishing at midnight, you'll have 10 units of alcohol. You'll lose 2 units until you finish drinking, and the other 8 units will have cleared your body by 8:00 a.m. the next day. Roughly two units is enough to put most people on the edge of being over the limit.

If you'd been drinking Stella or cider though, you'd need to add about another 5 units to that, which would mean not being legal to drive until 11:00 a.m.

How many people here can honestly say they've not driven early in the morning after five pints of cider the night before? You were probably over the limit.

Even worse, at a party you (and I certainly) may have a couple of beers and a couple of bottles of wine. A bottle of wine is about 7.5 units. So the beers (4 units) and wine (15 units) could put you over the 16 units your body can happily extract. So even if you finish drinking at 2 a.m. and leave driving home until the following evening, you could still easily be over the limit by a fair amount - until the morning after the morning before.

Certainly food for thought...

So, having read that, have your attitudes towards people like Tay changed? Still think you're innocent of drink driving? Discuss :)
 
Drink Driving

I can 100% say I have never had a drink and then driven not even one.

I would never forgive myself if something happened.

If I have got totally drunk the night before I don't drive the following day until I've been asleep and had enough time to be clear. I leave it 12 hours before driving and even then sometimes I just don't bother driving.

This is why I don't drink and lives are house parties as I have to drive the following day.
 
Re: Drink Driving

I used to think like Marc, but the figures are really shocking (I've always known there's a risk, but didn't know the actual facts - researching this because of Tay's post has been a real eye opener). To know that it could be over 24 hours until I'm below the legal limit is quite scary.

I'll bet for most people they just consider morning as "fine to drive after a good night's sleep". The biggest issue is that you don't know exactly how much alcohol is in you. You can breath it out and sweat it out as well as passing through the liver (though not a lot). If you eat though, the alcohol can be retained for longer (you don't get drunk as fast eating because your body is busy dealing with metabolising all the food too - but it also means the alcohol sits there for a longer period in the digestive tract). So you really can't judge.

So yeah, scary to lesson learned...
 
Drink Driving

Tbh though I never really drink that much I just drink fast then drink water. Max is 11 bottle of s ice then about 5 bottles of water lol.
 
Re: Drink Driving

1. Drunk Driving.. you hippies.
2. I have before. Had my license for 8 years and did it maybe 3 times? And as many times as I've been drunk and not at my house.. it is a good stat tbh.
 
Re: Drink Driving

I think I've driven properly drunk two times. Usually I catch a bus downtown and have my stepdad pick me up, but it's such effort (yeah, it would be more effort if I were dying in a hospital, I know) so on the odd occassion when I wasn't planning on getting smashed and decided to take my car with me, I've driven it home. I don't really get drunk at work because I always take my car with me, plus I'm not a lightweight anymore and I don't get drunk off five shots like the other girls. Usually if I'm in my car after I've had alcohol, I've only had two beers or something, except for the off time where I've had too much.

So yah I don't make it a regular habit, but I certainly have done it. I fully realize how stupid it is before anyone tries to lecture me :p . I know it doesn't excuse the action of driving drunk, but I never go on roads with a speed limit higher than 50 kmh when I've been drinking any amount of alcohol because I don't want to die.
 
Re: Drink Driving

Marc:
Yeah, that's about 15 units, so 15 hours after you've started drinking you should be safe.

The problem with the water is that it helps your hydration but slows down absorption of the alcohol. So you'll feel less ill in the morning, but need a little more time to get the alcohol out.

Of course, body fat makes a difference in how much alcohol gets into the blood stream and all kinds (the alcohol gets absorbed into fat in preference to blood), how fit you are (the fitter, the more active the liver and the faster it processes) and your age, height and sex.

Being taller and fatter than you Marc, I might have half as much blood alcohol after 11 Smirnoff Ices, but there's no way to be sure in the slightest.

Snoo: Drunken Driving if we're being pedantic :p

Snoo/Tay: See, I've never, ever gone out drinking and then driven. I think it's such an awful idea to deliberately do that. However, I'll regularly drive after a night out and not think anything of it - well, until now. Morally, knowing in advance (premeditated drunken driving) seems worse, but in reality it isn't (hence why I researched this before laying into Tay ;) ).

Suddenly, the Norwegian and other European "zero tolerance" laws make sense.

Will take this to task though:
LiveForTheLaunch said:
plus I'm not a lightweight anymore and I don't get drunk off five shots like the other girls. Usually if I'm in my car after I've had alcohol, I've only had two beers or something, except for the off time where I've had too much.
Click to expand...

A pint of decent "beer" could put me over the legal limit in the UK, but I won't start "feeling drunk" until I've had probably three pints. There's a difference between feeling drunk and it actually having a physical affect on your body and brain. This is the issue with morning drunken driving, you feel fine and not drunk at all - yet you are.
 
^ Yeah, I know you can be drunk the morning after and not feel it, but at that point it's hardly putting risk to yourself or others. You'd be getting in **** if you got pulled over, but it's less of a risk than driving when you're smashed. It really IS a stupid thing to bring the car with the intention of being drunk, I know I'm smarter than to do that but one of the two times I was guilty of properly drinking and driving, there was no intention of being drunk. The thing I hate it when people have asked me for a ride home, because although I know I'm putting myself at risk and possibly other drivers, I'd never forgive myself if I got in an accident and killed or hurt some of my friends.

On that note, I think everyone is getting a hotel tonight so I'll be responsible and not drink and drive :p . I hate the fact that downtown isn't within walking distance.
 
furie said:
Snoo/Tay: See, I've never, ever gone out drinking and then driven. I think it's such an awful idea to deliberately do that. However, I'll regularly drive after a night out and not think anything of it - well, until now. Morally, knowing in advance (premeditated drunken driving) seems worse, but in reality it isn't
Click to expand...

Well, to be honest, none of mine were really "I'M GOING TO DRIVE HOME ALL **** UP!" from the get go. I wouldn't have been legally able to drive (In Ohio, if you have more then 3 drinks I think it's above the limit) but felt I was capable in my state. This is me basing this off of Ohio State Law where 6 beers is technically illegal but for a guy who, during these instances, could throw down with the best of them.. it was just a drop in the pond.

I have actually cut most drinking out of my life and I haven't even been in that situation for 3 years.. and with the way my life has evolved, I won't be again. I chalk it up to young.. stupid.. etc etc.
 
The difference in attitudes here is as such;

One point is to try and provide the viewpoint that several on here may have driven drunk without realising, either through not knowing their own tolerance of units in relation to what they might blow in a breath test, or not fully recovering the morning after.

The other viewpoint (and I'm sorry, but like **** am I ignoring this), and one which pisses me off, is knowingly driving drunk.

(Then there's the third of temptation taking over)

No excuses for it whatsoever, regardless of what roads you drive on, how much you think you can handle, and several other excuses used above to try and make yourself feel better about recklessly endangering the lives of yourself, your friends and other users of the road.

I just can't rank ignorance as to your own lack of personal restraint (i.e going out and getting more drunk than planned before driving back) below knowingly driving well over the limit.

For the record, I've never driven after any amount of drink, and given that I rarely drink as it is there's never an issue of being over the limit the next day.
 
^This. I think Furie has made a very scary point about the amount of alcohol still in your system the next day. It's definitely something most people won't think about.

Me? Well I don't drive so, yeah, never drunk driven somewhere :D
 
It's not just drink driving though that people do when they think their under the limit.

How many people drive after taking pain killers or hey fever treatment? Ever read the small print? If you have an accident and they take bloody and find it then your as guilty as a drunk driver.

I don't agree with drink driving, but I would not preach to people each to their own. If they are caught then they have to live with that.

I know what furie means about it stating in your bloody etc. I have always stuck by my rule if I'm driving I don't have a drink as I cannot stop after one I have to get pissed.
 
I have basically stopped drinking, and even when I did, I didn't have a car. It's great, considering I live 6 blocks from the bars, and if I do want to drink, its a ten minute walk. If my friends and I wanna go someplace else to drink, I am always the designated driver, and I never have any drinks when I am DD. If I have an insane night of drinking, I don't drive the next day at all, and sometimes the day following if I don't need to.

I have lost too many friends to drunk driving, and it never ends well. I know better than to do it, and if I am put in the situation where its possible, I just don't do it. It's not worth the possibilities of what could happen, especially with how expensive DUI's are and the lack of a license, something I desperately need.
 
marc said:
I
I don't agree with drink driving, but I would not preach to people each to their own. If they are caught then they have to live with that.
Click to expand...

Now you see, I would preach to people.

I drive on the same roads as these selfish ****, my parents do, my girlfriend does, my sister does, my freinds do.

Should I ever lose any of them in an incident involving somebody who's knowingly driven under the influence, do you think I'd take any relief from knowing that they have to live with it for the rest of their lives? None. I'd much rather they used a shred of common sense and spared us both the grief.

It's unfortunate, but 'each to their own' doesn't really apply here in my opinion, given it's often not just themselves that end up suffering the consequences of their selfishness.
 
I used to but gave up preaching to them.

Mates of mine done it all the time I would just not get in the car with them.

I also hate the excuse "I drive better drunk". No you don't you just think you do lol.

Yes I agree with you it will be the innocent person that suffers if there is an accident due to it.

I believe cars should be fitted with a device that checks before it starts up.
 
If somebody has even just a sip of alcohol of any kind, I refuse to get in the car with them. I've been known to walk miles and miles before on my own in the freezing cold because of it, but I seriously cannot be driven by somebody who has been drinking (even a sip).
 
I've never driven after alcohol. I know it takes a while to pass through your body so always wait almost 24 hours before I drive again. I know thats a bit over the top but I don't drive that much anyway.

When I went out drinking last week while at home I walked to town and back. It's about a 15 minute drive but I still decided to walk as I'd never drive with any alcohol in me.

Even if you feel fine and that you can drive safely it won't stop the cops giving you a nice fine and some point on your license if they breathalise you.
 
I've never driven drunk on a night out or pub, I've had a bottle of Corona or something similar and gotten in the car and driven, but I'm not over the limit on that, so that's fine and it'll usually be a couple of hours after the drink that I will be getting in the car anyway.

I have, however, driven drunk in the morning. I got wrecked one night and completely forgot that I had work at 8am the next day. I was rudely awoken by a phonecall at 8.05am asking where I was, and literally jumped out of bed, shoved clothes on and drove to work. After about ten minutes of driving I realised that I was actually quite drunk and this was very dangerous but I was too worried about missing work to care. And then I got sent home because I was too hungover to function lol.

But yeah, never knowingly driven my car drunk or even driven to a pub/club, had a drink and driven home. It just doesn't even occur to me.
 
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