Submitted 2 months ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to [deleted]
The safe amount of alcohol science recommend for an adult is zero.
Alcohol is one of the few substances for which these is proven evidence that any quantity is bad and will cause progressive and irreversible damage to you.
I do drink albeit not much, like a few times a year, so I am not against alcohol at all, it’s your body your choice.
But given the above, I am only happy if the tolerance on driving under any alcohol influence at all is punished
Don’t take this the wrong way, but this is an answer to a question OP didn’t ask. They were asking for a descriptive answer to the driving limit, not a normative opinion of what you think the limit should be.
Also your conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise. (I could be wrong; but it really doesn’t matter anyway considering the first paragraph of my response)
Yes you are right, but I think a good answer to op question had to consider that zero tolerance at the driving seat is the correct answer, and my take is not on saving the children, as other stated, but that on a dangerous substance there cannot be a itching other than zero tolerance on drunk driving.
Let’s say a different take.
Alcohol is one of the few substances for which these is proven evidence that any quantity is bad
I’ve seen some researches pushing this agenda. They mostly focused on one thing, like cancer, or cut out the “zero consumption” cohort. More comprehensive research shows that while any amount of alcohol increases cancer risks, good done to dexterity of vascular systems overweights it in terms of life expectancy overall at around 7 drinks a week.
There are zero health benefits from alcohol that outweigh the drawbacks. As someone in medical, your comment is outdated misinformation people use to rationalize their drinking.
I like whiskey but I am not under the guise that it is anyway helpful to my body.
Nope, your data is outdated. The explanation for that invalid argument is quite interesting actually.
Link to that study. Bullshit.
Yes and my grandmother lived to 80 because she drank wine every lunch and dinner.
No, that’s not true and alcohol doesn’t help the vascular system in any meaningful way. You can find scientific research that says anything and the opposite of that, that’s why what you need is scientific evidence on quality studies that have been repeated abd confirmed by the community at large.
It’s hard to understand how science works, but having studies says one thing is not enough, you need comprehensive studies and meta research as well to get a solid conclusion and that says alcohol doesn’t do any good to your body, and I am not talking about cancer but also mental degrade, damage to neurons and so on.
It shouldn’t be 0.0%, but 0.08% is quite generous. At 0.02%, it is clearly detectable with equipment but you aren’t likely to notice. Some people also naturally have a constant BAC in the 0.01% range. At 0.05%, you definitely feel it and are twice as likely to cause an accident than sober.
4 beers in an hour is a significant amount. People who drink that much and drive are not hardasses. They are murderers.
Get off the 4road.
It should most definitely NOT be .00. That would lead to massive abuse by the police as having a sip of cold medicine could land you a dui.
Some counties are 0.0%. My friend in Japan slept in his car after a night if drinking and got pulled over the next morning (I think cops had seen him in the car and were waiting). He had 0.1% and got deported
A bit of whipped cream made with vanilla extract could put you over 0% since the extract is nostly alcohol.
Why does even-ness matter? Just because our number system is decimal doesn’t mean nature fits into that pattern nicely.
at 0.08 you can be measurably tested to have worse reaction capability, so that’s where they set the limit.
4 beers at 12 oz isn’t exactly 0.08, that’s just approximately what it takes in the average person. Some people will be more, some less. Time and other factors affect it too.
Why does even-ness matter?
Because significant figures.
0.1 means you have a margin of error of ±0.05 (i.e. the true value is between 0.05 and 0.15).
0.08 means the margin of error is ±0.005 (i.e. the true value is between 0.075 and 0.085).
I mean, that’s just an issue of notation. OP could have just as easily meant 0.10 but chopped off the trailing zero out of habit.
Mother Against Drunk Driving decided all of it.
Nobody can defend drunk driving, but the fact you give up your rights during a stop should make you angry.
If you get charged with any other crime you are allowed to talk to a lawyer except in drunk driving. You are tried and convicted on the side of the road and the evidence they use to convict you (your breath) isn’t preserved… it just blows away in the wind.
Nobody should be drunk driving but we still need to change the way we handle suspected drunk driver’s
I’m pretty sure that if they find a person drunk they have to take that person to a hospital to get a blood test and accurately gauge the alcohol percentage, the test also stands as proof.
If you were accused of murdering and taken to the hospital for a blood test with a lawyer present people would lose their minds
But suspected drunk drivers it happens all the time without a lawyer present
It’s hard to say there was one specific act that caused it because each state has its own legal limit laws, but
From 2000 to 2004 Mothers Against Drunk Driving protested, rallied, and lobbied to decrease the limit from between 0.1 to 0.15 down to 0.08 and federal congress passed an act to withhold 10% of transportation funding from any state which refused to comply.
The idea behind the movement is this: if you drank any alcohol, you should strongly consider not driving at all. “Buzzed driving is drunk driving”. Generally if people aren’t pressured as such then they will judge for themselves whether they think they’re safe to drive, and drunks are horrible judges.
It was .10 pretty much everywhere when I was a kid, .08 became a thing little by little during the 90s, I think. MADD, mothers against drunk driving, is the reason behind this and many of the things surrounding drunk driving some find too restrictive or punitive. They were a very effective lobbying group.
Even though their founder is or was a drunk and caught dwi after dwi while heading MADD. Kind of seems the irony speaks for itself and that no one did their background check.
What is the entire post, honestly?
Were you actually trying to get an answer to the question you originally posted? Or do you have some bizarre pro-dui agenda to push.
This whole post reads like someone who is upset that got caught driving at .09.
MADD had a fundraiser effort by offering breath mints for donations at bars and restaurants.
I sat on the Board of a disease charity for 15 years. A charity can start with the best of intentions and integrity, but a single CEO can just change that to a money machine. The mandate becomes just rasing money.
When I was a kid it was 0.10%. And I think it was pretty well attested by a lot of different studies that that was too high, so MADD succeeded in lobbying to get it dropped lower.
And you think 4 beers is “small” for the purposes of driving? I know some people have pretty strong tolerances, but there are definitely people I know who shouldn’t be driving after two. Maybe even one. Remember, you don’t have to be completely sloshed to be a danger to others. You just have to be a little bit slower, a little bit less observant, a little bit less in control of your muscles, a little bit more inclined to take unnecessary risks. Your body just has to respond a little bit differently than you’re used to. You just need to be a little bit more likely to nod off.
If 4 beers produces 0.08% (I have no idea if this is accurate), then it should probably be lowered by at least half as driving after 4 beers seems like a quite a bad idea.
I also have no idea if it’s accurate, I was just granting that premise. As the other person noted, with the definition of percentage being what it is, it necessarily has to be a different number of beers for people with different volumes of blood.
While I agree with you, I feel like the more effective way to reduce risk on the road is to take the implications here all the way to their logical conclusions. Some people ARE a little slower, a little less reactive, more likely to take risks, or less capable behind the wheel.
It seems to me that the testing process to pilot a personal road missile ought to take a page from this and be more frequent and more strict.
I agree, but that doesn’t really work outside a city in the USA, given how little we invest in public transit. The entire economy in outlying areas would go to shit because everyone has to drive an hour to get to work.
Sort of, but I believe someone found that the actual risk isn’t so much in the low reaction time or impulse control, it’s in the change between the inebriated person’s usual faculties and what they’re experiencing under the influence of alcohol. Drivers who are used to having a 1-second reaction time are likely to continue driving as if they have a 1-second reaction time even if their actual speed is more like 1.75-second due to alcohol.
You’re not going to get any argument from me that it’s insane we allow anyone to pilot a four-thousand-pound vehicle after only a single one-hour test, and retain that permission indefinitely, though.
IIRC, it used to be 0.10, but was lowered to 0.08 because some studies (and maybe some advocacy groups) found out that there was significant impairment at 0.08 BAC.
The number reallsk shouldn’t be round. It should be the number where 99.999% of people are not too impaired to drive a car.
Driving simulation studies show impairment far below 0.08.
0.08 is pretty fucking drunk.
TBF, I think most drivers are impaired at 0.00.
It’s been really bad on the roads lately.
Isn’t 0.08 around 3 beers for the average person?
While I wouldn’t drive at that level that is definitely not “pretty fucking drunk”
I’d rather it be zero. Walk, public transit, or taxi your way to drinks. Stay in a hotel.
I say this as someone who grew up driving home from the club and such when I most likely should not have been. I know a lot of people who got OMVI/DUI/DWI/whateverYourJurisdictionCallsIt and nearly lost my bandmate.
Get ready to face DUI charges when you take cough medicine, eat some overripe fruit, or have some yogurt, among other things. Trace amounts of alcohol exist in a number of foods, so you could easily fail a 0.0 test by simply eating breakfast.
Don’t cite things on a gotcha response as if it were even momentarily researched.
So, worst case scenario, you chug a pint of soy sauce in your car, immediately drive up to a checkpoint on the way to a hospital because of the amount of salt, they test you randomly and get a positive result from the oral residue, and then get nothing when they retest unless you are so small and light that you are probably a literal child.
I recently tried to plan a night out in “the city” and was looking for a hotel since I would like to have a few drinks. I can’t believe how stupid prices are.
A shitty motel is like $400 a night, so you would have to hire a cab already to drive you to a cheaper hotel like 15-20 minutes away.
Nicer hotels are going like $600-$800 a night.
How on earth does anyone afford a vacation for prices like that?
We normally do budget hotels which thankfully are far cheaper than that for where we go. We have to stay (or hire someone to drive our car followed by a taxi to take the driver on) whenever we go into the city since it’s a ~50 minute walk to our station mostly in the dark and in an area with bears.
For people in the city (or nearer stations, I guess), it’s a lot easier than for those of us who live further away.
Is it really? People get popped for 0.00 and the cops just say they must be on drugs. After spending thousands in lawyer and court costs it gets dropped but you already went through the same (or worse) bullshit than if you were actually shitfaced.
Meanwhile cops drive drunk all the time.
Yep had uncle who was a cop. Rode with him once he bought pack of beer and pop one open on the way home. I asked what would happen if he got pulled over? He show his badge. Fucker wasn’t even in his justification. Guess being a cop gave him immunity. That was in the 90’s.
Now that could be a basis for a good lawsuit
The US also doesn't label alcohol content effectively - % alone is not helpful.
In Australia for example, all booze containers tell you how many "standard drinks" they contain. 1 standard drink is the average amount of alcohol a body can process in an hour. If you have no more than 1-2 standard drinks in you, you should still pass a breathalyzer, depending on weight/gender.
A ~5% beer can is ~1.5 standard drinks. So if you drank 4x beers over the last 3 hours, best spend another hour drinking water before you drive:
4 beers x 1.5 = 6 standard drinks. - 3 hours = 3 standard drinks
Even what is called "1 standard drink" isn't standardised across countries though.
For you, and also us in NZ it's 10g of ethanol (approximately 12ml), in the UK it's 8g. The US does in fact have a standard measure too, but 14g (and I don't know enough to know how widely it's actually used).
So as well as the standard drinks per bottle, the rule-of-thumb has to differ between countries too.
2 reasons, remembered from a lawyers lecture on the subject at uni, years ago, in the UK.
Some people produce small amounts of alcohol in their gut. It’s generally not much (more becomes auto brewery syndrome) but not zero. This can blip the test up slightly, even when they haven’t drunk.
The awkward fact that a small amount of alcohol actually improves driving. It’s somewhere between 1/4 and 3/4 pint of beer. It’s also the reason alcohol is considered a performance enhancing drug in some olympic sports.
The limit is set high enough that there is no arguing these points in a court. It also covers the residual alcohol in people’s systems the morning after. It’s well into the point where all but the heaviest alcoholic will definitely be impaired. That lets them use blood alcohol as a proxy for impaired driving due to alcohol.
On a side note. I know someone who blew red on the breathalyser. He knew something was wrong, since he has been teetotal for 20 years. He got arrested, only for the blood test to show 0.0. The police were quite confused, but let him go. It turned out, he had (unthinkingly) eaten a liqueur chocolate before being pulled over. It was enough to mess up the breathalyser.
Some countries take it further and anything above a tiny amount (like 0.02) will get you a criminal record… although usually at such small amounts it’s just a fine and/or points on your licence, using bans and prison sentences for higher levels (like the US levels you describe).
This to me is the right approach - it’s long been proven that even regular drinkers suffer an impact on reaction times and anticipation with even a small amount of alcohol, so it really should be zero tolerance. I can’t think of any other situation where you’d be allowed to control a two ton piece of metal at 60+ mph around other people, houses, cars etc without having proper control.
It’s pretty wild really. In my country, it’s pretty “normal” to drink 2 beers and then drive home. However, if I drink a sip of beer before work, I’d be immediately fired, because it’d be unsafe for me to have any kind of alcohol in my blood.
So we acknowledge that even tiny amounts of alcohol can impair you to the point of being a danger, unless you’re driving a 2 ton heavy machine at 130 km/h on your way home…
In Canada, there is zero tolerance for new teen drivers, but once they get their full licence, they can drink and drive. Really sends a message, and 20 somethings get killed every single weekend.
It’s because of the children
It should be zero. No worries about the limit law if you don’t drink and drive. Drink as much as you want, just don’t drink and drive.
Understand now?
I get your intent, but it should definitely not be 0% as there are various reasons that it could be slightly more than 0 (some food recipes have tiny amount of alcohol, some medicines have small amount of alcohol, even natural digestive functions can produce small amounts). I’d be fine with it being lowered even more though.
Legislators decide things like that…
The limit has to be somewhere. Most experienced drivers can still drive reasonably safely after drinking small amounts of alcohol, e.g. one glass of beer; they can’t after drinking ten glasses of beer. So a limit had to be drawn somewhere. It’s different in different jurisdictions, for example AFAIK there are some countries in Europe (Czechia?) where the limit really is 0.0 or very close to that.
In some cases insurance won’t pay for medical expenses or life insurance premiums if alcohol is involved.
aburrito@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
In many states, like NY anything above 0 is illegal. Above 0.08 is criminal.
4 12oz beers is NOT small, be responsible.
iocase@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
The answer for why is MADD and the reason it’s illegal to drive above zero is MADD. They lobby hard for zero tolerance whatsoever. They want the criminal limit to be zero as well. Once they get that they’ll try to ban cars entirely.
BTW I don’t drink so I don’t necessarily care. My criticism is about the goalpost moving of a successful non profit after it gets what it wants. You change the goal to keep your org and funding. They’ll never ever go “mission accomplished, let’s wind this down”…
aburrito@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
This is one of those “idk man I think it depends”. I think the average median person probably should not drive, let alone drink and operate 2 ton vehicles near where people walk. But the law is bs and clearly isn’t nearly effective enough for what the policy it sounds like they advertise for. But on the surface level I’m like 🤷♀️ maybe it should be lower, but everything related to the enforcement of the law is so fucked idek
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
The mission was never close to accomplished, and more people are driving high on pot.
ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
This right here. The anti-smoking groups dried up as soon as they got everything they wanted and more, it’s a cautionary tale for other “public safety” activist groups. Dog catching the car and all that.
darreninthenet@piefed.social 2 months ago
What’s the practical difference between illegal and criminal in the US? To me, a Brit, they are the same thing.
iocase@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
I think it’s misdemeanour and felony probably? Like the difference between petty theft and theft over $5000
spongebue@lemmy.world 2 months ago
All things criminal are illegal, but not all things illegal are criminal. Speeding and other traffic violations are illegal, but they’re not criminal. Overstaying your visa (most common form of illegal immigration) is, IIRC a civil violation but it’s not a criminal one either.
That said, I don’t think what the initial post said is entirely true either and will make that a separate reply.
spongebue@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I think that being impaired with anything above 0 is illegal. You could be at .06 but have such a low tolerance that it affects you pretty badly and get cited for it. But 0.08+ is automatically considered impaired, no matter how good your tolerance may be, if you get tested at that level.