How long after you get drunk at a party can you drive so it would be safe? Not that I would get drunk, but they asked this question on the radio this morning and nobody knew the answer.
I assume by safe, you mean legal.
Your liver can process one standard drink per hour, so if you have only one drink per hour, your blood alcohol level will not rise.
Therefore, the answer to your question depends on how many drinks were consumed over the specified time frame. From this reference point, it is possible to estimate how quickly the blood alcohol level will decline to that which is legal.
However, if you want to be truly safe, so that your lelvel of impairment is minimal, you will need to wait until all the alcohol is processed, and your blood alcohol level is nil.
Better still, if you plan to drive, don’t drink.
The “one drink an hour” figure is just the average across the population, but individuals vary widely on alcohol tolerance. The biggest factors seem to be body mass, gender, and previous experience with alcohol, but even those aren’t a sure indicator: It’s possible, although unlikely, for a 100 pound woman at her first college party to outdrink a 300 pound frat guy.
I remember reading somewhere that the Air Force performed detailed tests on this, and found that impairment can last as long as three days after heavy drinking. Of course, the slightest impairment will matter a lot more in an AF-117 than it will in a Volvo.
just from memory…one standard drink contains approx 30milligrams alcohol…so assume that is the rate at which alcohol is metabolised per hour.
varies from person to person tho…
The “rule of thumb” which is taught on every road safety commercial here goes on standard drinks per hour.
As a - very rough - guide, that means your body can eliminate 285 ml of beer, about 140 ml of wine, about 30ml of spirits, or about 15ml of liqueurs per hour.
If you err on the side of caution, you can never go wrong.
Here’s a good link
http://cs.joensuu.fi/~jtalja/alkometer.htm
In Finland the limits are 0.5 and 1.2 per mille. The reading is taken from breathing air.If the limits are exceeded(or nearly that) the person is taken to a hospital and a blood sample is taken to verify the results.