# Driving drunk in Darwin, Australia
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 2, 2001, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083 "2001-05-02T14:41:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2001, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/1 "2001-05-02T14:41:24Z")
Well, actually “walking” drunk.
I heard a news blurb this morning that "a drunken man in Darwin, Australia, stumbled into a police station to ask for directions. His BAL turned out to be **eight times the legal limit**.
Which lead me to wonder, “What _is_ the legal limit.” I would think it must be rather low, since a BAL of .64 would seem like a quick ticket to room-temperaturedom.
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### Author:  [@DVous\_Means](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DVous_Means)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2001, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/2 "2001-05-02T14:49:06Z")
Australia-wide, the legal limit for driving is .05, so eight times that is still very close to room-temperature material.
As for walking drunk, AFAIK being drunk in a public place is not necessarily a crime in Australia (not in South Australia), so it’s doubtful that any limit would apply in this instance.
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### Author:  [@dqa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dqa)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2001, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/3 "2001-05-03T03:21:54Z")
While we’re on the topic, i’ve noticed that on the BBC website they refer to drunk driving as “drink-driving.”
> [@](#):
>
> [http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid\_1004000/1004736.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1004000/1004736.stm)
> \*\*
> Republican presidential nominee George W Bush was arrested for drink-driving 24 years ago…\*\*
Just doesn’t sound right to my Yankee ears. Is this phrasing used throughout the Commonwealth, excepting N. America?
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### Author:  [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2001, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/4 "2001-05-03T03:45:39Z")
In Australia it’s drink-driving, because at .05 you are not drunk (I’m not anyway), just not right to drive. Two standard drinks in the first hour and one in each hour afterwards would keep me at about the limit, but I wouldn’t be drunk.
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### Author:  [@reprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reprise)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2001, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/5 "2001-05-03T03:50:05Z")
When did the ACT, the NT and WA change their PCA limits?
Always used to be .05 in some states and .08 in others - either way, it’s way too much alcohol.
IIRC, the highest recorded in NSW is pushing .4, and that person should have been dead.
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### Author:  [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2001, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/6 "2001-05-03T04:14:56Z")
.50 will usually kill you. .40 will in most cases make you unconscious. Of course, when you are at .39 it’s easy to down enough liquor to carry you that last .11.
It used to be .10 in most of the U.S.A.
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2001, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/7 "2001-05-03T04:30:51Z")
Regarding the ‘drink-walking’ (or 'drunk-walking’as you Americans would say)I think the implication of the story was that the guy walked into the police station to ask for driving directions. Which of itself suggests that he was completely off his head…
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### Author:  [@Ell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ell)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2001, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/8 "2001-05-03T07:53:15Z")
I remember a stort of an Adelaide(?) women with a BAL of .5. She survived. Anyone remember this?
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### Author:  [@JamesCarroll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JamesCarroll)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2001, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/9 "2001-05-03T08:23:42Z")
I was .54 one time. The only reason I know this is because the judge was surprised that I could even find my car, let alone drive cross-town.
Luckily, I was under age and the captain of the football team. Dad paid the $50 fine and I went home.
'course I didn’t get away “scott-free”. I had a really bad hangover.
But I was playing 4 days later and even caught an interception! And got a scholarship at the end of the season.
Man, life is f&cked up ain’t it?
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### Author:  [@labdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/labdude)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2001, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/10 "2001-05-03T10:05:29Z")
I’ve seen several blood alcohol levels of about 0.85%. These were all in sever life long alcoholics. Doing BA measurements is part of my job. (these people didn’t die, well not right away. I would expect their livers to last many years at that rate)
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### Author:  [@Mousseduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mousseduck)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2001, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/11 "2001-05-03T13:06:24Z")
You can, in Western Australia anyway, be arrested for drunk and disorderly, but it doesn’t sound like the guy Mjollnir referred to was being disorderly.
WA changed the BAC about 3 or 4 years ago to 0.05 to ‘fit in with the rest of Australia’ and, of course, try and prevent road deaths, but you now hear more ads about driving tired than DD.
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### Author:  [@Adolph\_Peewee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adolph_Peewee)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2001, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/12 "2001-05-06T14:11:38Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Ell \*
> \*\*I remember a stort of an Adelaide(?) women with a BAL of .5. She survived. Anyone remember this? \*\*
I have heard of this one before. There’s been a couple of stories along those lines.
Drink driving in South Australia doesn’t apply purely to motor vehicles either. A couple of years back, a new copper in a small country town booked a guy for being over the prescribed BAC while riding a camel!
Can’t remember if he got off or not…
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### Author:  [@MannyL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MannyL)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2001, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/13 "2001-05-06T14:15:46Z")
You mean that guy may stll be on the camel?
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2001, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/14 "2001-05-06T17:15:17Z")
> [@](#):
>
> As for walking drunk, AFAIK being drunk in a public place is not necessarily a crime in Australia …
I thought it was a civil duty.
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### Author:  [@Adolph\_Peewee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adolph_Peewee)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2001, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driving-drunk-in-darwin-australia/64083/15 "2001-05-08T10:48:33Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by MannyL \*
> \*\*You mean that guy may stll be on the camel? \*\*
you’re a wally!! 😛
I was talking about the court case assosciated with it…but hey…take it any way you like. It could have been interpreted as having sexual connitations too!..but bit worrying when he’s on a camel! 😃