Ummm, do you mean .02?
In college back in the 80s, we weren’t particularly careful about it. I had grown up Mormon, so no drinking, then when I started I went overboard. I was in a group that went to the clubs on Friday or Saturday nights and we would all drive home. One time I had to keep my elbow on the armrest to keep it steady. Looking back, it was insane.
In Japan, taxis and trains were more convenient.
I grew up in a state that had a 21 y.o. drinking age, Indiana. Ohio and Michigan (bordering states) had 18 y.o drinking age (1970s). Could be in either state in 25-30 minutes. Knew quite a few people that got hurt and a few that died driving back from Charlie’s in Hicksville OH or The Matteson House in Bronson MI. Didn’t slow us down at all. Lucky to have lived through it without causing harm to anyone else.
Never.
I don’t touch the stuff.
Different figures in Europe, although I’d expect 0.5, not 0.2.
I left off the units and forgot that Norway’s a bit of an oddball for insisting on measuring BAC in “promille” instead of percent. It’s 0.02, or more precisely:
Many times in college and in my early twenties, form various bars, clubs, parties. I’m not sure how many times would have qualified as “drunk” however, but I can recall a half dozen or so that probably would have. I have been pulled over twice after some significant drinking (6 or so drinks during the outing), and both times passed the street-side breathalyzer.
Good news is that I regret my stupidity and haven’t driven like that for over twenty years now.
I keep a breathalyzer in the car. I doubt it’s super accurate. I’ve never driven when I’m above 0.05, and rarely above 0.03.
I had my first drink at age 33, so no college drinking stories from me.
Sure, when I was much younger and dumber I drove many times when I definitely should not have. Never suffered any consequences, thank goodness. I have been pulled over and made to do a sobriety test 3 times in my life and passed them all. I had indeed been drinking on each occasion, and one in particular I can hardly believe they let me go. But they did. So I guess I can be a high functioning drunk? Regardless, I always have a DD or Uber available these days.
Is that when you wake up at home and don’t know whether to be happy or sad that your car is parked in the garage?
Lots of times. But I grew up in a small town, and went to college just outside another small town (and the drinking age was 19), so (other than the other drunk drivers) there generally weren’t a lot of folks to run over/into. Not any more (smarter, more to lose, easier to find other ways home, wife who doesn’t drink much).
A lot of people are talking about their luck in not crashing/killing someone. I’m too lazy to luck up the stats, but even if DD double or tripled your odds, you still aren’t very likely to have been in an accident (much less a fatal one). Not that I’m defending the practice because it is a risk that is easily avoided.
Never. never have, never will.
the closest I’ve come to it was simulating it in Forza 4
I did a lap on the Nürburgring in a VW GTI MkV (the closest match to my MkV Rabbit)sober to establish a baseline, then did a lap after I drank a can of beer…
my driving skill started degrading at 2 beers, then became “dangerous” at 3
I clearly am quite incapable of “holding my liquor”, I know what my limits are and how not to exceed them.
In that driving test thing I did, one of the things was to see how accurately we could all estimate our BAC, as opposed to what it actually was. Like, in my own opinion I was fine after however many drinks. It was beer so I wasn’t drinking it fast. (We were drinking and playing video games in between road tests.) I think I had three drinks in two hours, or something like that, which would have been typical for me in a night out drinking, but beer wouldn’t have been typical, and beer seems to make me sleepier than wine or gin. (Also meaner, but that didn’t figure into this test.)
We were all pretty bad at figuring out if we were at or over the limit, and we erred on the side of not being over the limit. I think one of the reasons I got selected for this was that I was a lightweight, physically speaking, although I also thought I was really good at handling my booze. But on the last one, if a cop had caught and tested me, I would have been over the threshold for the lower offense, and I didn’t think I was.
I seem to remember that the person who was best at estimating actual BAC was one of the worst drivers, drunk or sober.
When I turned 21 and could legally purchase alcohol I was living in a city with good public transportation and didn’t own a car so… no problem. I could drink and get home without driving.
Fairly quickly, I discovered alcohol’s effect on me was unpredictable. At that point I decided that if I had to drive I would not drink and if I drank I would not drive. Never mind drunk or not, no alcohol for me before getting behind the wheel.
Have not had a problem adhering to that for the subsequent 30+ years.
Absolutely never. I enjoy drinking. I know when to stop or alternatively I know when to call a cab or a friend or a parent.
We have it set up now already with our children (since they were 5 years old we’ve instilled in them this fact). Any time, any place on earth, any reason, call us and we’ll get you immediate transportation out. No questions asked. We don’t care, we just want you safe. No exceptions- international collect call. Same day 1st class airline ticket by one of us to get you or for you to get anywhere else on the planet. As a high schooler, our child has Ubered away from get togethers of friends when it got late and her ride wasn’t getting to leave at the discussed time and even Uber home from school in the evening when the it looked like bad weather was coming and she didn’t trust her driving ability.
I grew up in the boonies and have lived everywhere from their to large cities and in between. There is simply no excuse ever.
By that standard, I probably never have driven drunk. But I drove when I’d had a couple of drinks, and despite feeling fine, my reflexes were really off. Regardless of what the law might have said, I was driving under the influence, and it was dumb.
Yes. Five drinks in an hour? Holy shit. I’m not sure I could walk, let alone drive.
Male, 180 pounds, for reference.
No. I don’t drink. But I stopped driving when I had some health issues I thought would make it unsafe for me to drive, or when taking medications with warnings about operating heavy machinery while taking it.
35 years ago in college I did, and sideswiped a parked car and drove off. What a fucking idiot.
I have never had any alcohol in my life. I watched my older siblings & cousins become alcoholics, & chose not to go down that path.
When I was 18 I got a part time job at a wrecking yard. I got to drive the wrecker quite often as no one else liked to do this & I did not mind operating it. Operating the wrecker was fun, but there were other things about it that I disliked. I can not count how many times the cause of the accident I responded to was drunk driving. It was for the vast majority of the calls that I went on.
Due to being the only wrecking yard on our end of the county, I was often the first on the scene of an accident. I learned first aid fast. I will not go into details, nor will I make any comments about drunk drivers. However, IMHO, Scraping dead bodies off of the blacktop is a sure cure for any thoughts of driving drunk. Trust me on this one. Do not try it for yourself, you will not dig it!
Not surprisingly, I personally have no time, or patience, for BS excuses as to why someone would chose to drive drunk. Please, just don’t.