Nope, it isn’t. One shot, one beer, and one glass of wine all have the same amount of alcohol and for the sake of argument, constitute one drink. Generally speaking, one drink will raise the BAC of a male of average weight and height about .02% for every two hours. This also means that after three drinks, you need at least six hours for the alcohol to run its course through your system and you start to sober up. It also means that four drinks basically puts you at the legal limit, maybe three drinks if you haven’t eaten or you’re drinking water along with the alcohol. Women also tend to have an even more acute reaction than men due to smaller size, weight, and other considerations. It’s generally a safe bet that three drinks puts you on right on the edge unless you’re really big or have just eaten … not that this should serve as any sort of barometer for where to cut yourself off when you’re gonna be driving home in twenty minutes.
Just to pick a nit, it’s correct that about 40% of all U.S. traffic fatalities are alcohol-related, by the NHTSA’s definition of that term. [Cite] However, the NHTSA’s definition of an alcohol-related accident is one in which any involved party, be they driver, passenger, or pedestrian, has a BAC of .01 or more. So, of that 40%, some unknown, but probably significant, number of them are related to alcohol, but not to drunk driving, either because the alcohol was not consumed by an involved driver, or because the driver was not legally drunk.
None of which makes this situation any less tragic, or any more tolerable. My sincere condolences, Tony Montana.
Beer and wine all tend to be fairly close when you’re talking about the popular brands, but liquor varies tremendously in potency. Common liquors range from 35-75.5% alcohol by volume, and of course certain other spirits can go even higher.
One shot of a 151 proof liquor is a little more than twice as potent as a shot of 70 proof liquor.
Actually, I WAS one. For years, over and over again. My DUI conviction didn’t even slow me down. I didn’t get sober for another year.
Pretty fucking ironic and uncool.
And FYI- the asshole who killed Amy will supposedly have to do at least 85% of the 21 years before becoming eligible for parole.
As I tell anyone I know who drinks & drives: I don’t care if you drink yourself into the gutter, cause I know I’ve done it myself many times. But if you drink and get behind the wheel, you might as well be shooting a gun.
There was a bit on CNN.com about this very crash. It would seem that Pena was also hauling a pound of meth. The news piece is rather odd IMHO, they take a bit of time pitting how dangerous the road is, hilly, bumpy, narrow. A sidewalk is dangerous if you are drunk and on meth people.
He left five children? Oh my God, how horrid.
My professional wild ass guess, having run entirely too many alcohol-related crashes, is that the drunks are the ones doing something stupid. For example, if a drunk driver runs a light and broadsides a sober driver, the drunk will likely be much better off- they’ll have air bags, crumple zones, just more metal in general, etc. protecting them, while the sober driver is going to get nailed in the door. Again, I have no data whatsoever, but it makes sense to me.
I really feel for you Tony Montana. A few years ago my 17 year old cousin was killed by a drunk driver about 10 days before Christmas. Her mother still hasn’t recovered from it.
The driver in that case got 3 years. He killed both my cousin and her 17 year old friend. Apparently it was his first conviction and he showed remorse. Whatever. He killed my cousin, ruined her mother’s life, distroyed Christmas for many members of my family forever, and he got three years. Sickening.
Hang in there. The passage of time will make it better.
My guess: If the drunk gets killed, there’s no arrest so it’s more likely to be reported as just a fatal crash and not as a fatal crash involving alcohol.
Maybe so, but my impression from listening to news coverage of wrong-way driving drunks who kill people is that they usually have 2 or 3 times the legal limit of alcohol in their systems. In other words, they’re totally s***faced.
and IME, many folks who IMHO are ‘totally shitfaced’ think they’re fine.
I’ve gone to many an afterhours business gathering, I’m the only person not drinking. (I work w/offenders and don’t want to become one, so I never drink if I’ll be driving home, no, not even one beer).
I agree with this, but have no evidence, whatsoever, other than the driver’s BAC always seems to be as you said “2 or 3 or 4 times the legal limit.”
Of course, I’ve known alcoholics that could have a BAC 2 or 3 or 4 times the legal limit and still carry on a seemingly coherent conversation. No way should they drive, but others wouldn’t necessarily know they were shit-faced either. wring has it right - if you’re going to drive, even one glass of wine or one beer is too many.
I believe there may be more perception the drunk survives more often than the sober driver, than actual reality. I think this is because when the drunk does survive, it catches more attention. For example, the news media does not crawl all over a drunk dying and the sober driver walking away. Would this thread be here if Kent had walked away?
I would like to emphasize I am in no way condoning or excusing drunk driving. Any car crash involving severe injury or death is a tragedy, one involving drunk driving doubly so as it was preventable.
That a repeat offender is behind the wheel again is a gross failure of our system.
Tony Montana, I offer my sincerest condolences to you and the family of your friend. Please do not take this post to in anyway minimalize the tragedy of what has happened, or to show anything other than respect for the loss you and the friends and family of your friend are enduring.
This is a tragedy, and more must be done to prevent it in the future.
Not true at all. Fatal accidents are investigated just as much as a murder would be. I have never seen a fatal accident which did not involve an autopsy, including one car, one person accidents.
Totally unscientific but just about every fatal accident I remember being at (the ones involving alcohol) , the drunk driver was not hurt badly. Two exceptions a car vs train (probably a suicide) and bicycle vs train.
That explains why a serious collision shuts down one of our main arteries for an entire night or day when some assclown does something spectacularly stupid and takes himself and/or other people out. (How’s that for empathy?)
Here in MA repeat Drunken Driving is a serious proble, and one that the judges ignore-handing out trivial sentances to people who have been convicted 4-5-7 time! Part of the reason: defending DUI cases is a big business for the lawyers-recently, I read that the average DUI case fees out at 12K$ The judges don’t seem to care that these people kill tons of innocent victims-and as chronic alcoholics, they aren’t about to stop
I really wonder why people don't hold the judges in these cases more responsable. I know that I have seen election camapigns with "Judge Wanker is soft on crime." how about "five people are dead because Judge Arseclown let a drunk driver back on the road" Even for appointed Judges, it seems getting a reputation for letting killers roam free with their weapon of choice would be a bad thing.
At the very least, the judge should have to face the surviving family members and explain why he let the person who killed their loved one have that opportunity after it was proven that they couldn't be trusted behind the wheel.Doesn’t matter as it is not going to lesson the impact.
The real reason is that a car is designed is such a way to protect the driver in a head-on collision - ie crumple zones, airbags, seatbelts. All these are designed to lesson an impact where the forces are parallel to the cars direction of movement.
Cars offer less protection from side impacts. For example, the kind of impact one might see when a drunk runs a red light and T-bones a family of 4.
Sucks about your boss. A boss who doesn’t make your day miserable is a rare and wonderful thing.
your intent is good but according to the latest info I have on this you are a bit off.
if you are a male and weigh in at 225 pounds one drink will put you at .019
there arent a whole lot of people who weigh that much if you are a small female in the 100 pound range you are past the legal limit after 2 drinks.
this is the standard 3-4% beer or 80 proof booze. yes different drinks contain different amounts so you also need to be aware of what you are drinking. also you dont have to be over the limit to be affected. its one reason that in most (many?) european countries if you blow anything AT ALL you are busted, zero tolerance across the board.
(dont have all the stats with me or I would post them, I teach defensive driving so this is a subject I know pretty well)
There is something of a culture of acceptance of drunk driving in the US.
You might not think that, but come over to the UK and you will find out the differance.
I’ve seen the US tv cops type shows, where drivers just get a fine for drink driving, or even just a warning if they haven’t crashed but were just stopped for weaving around in the road. Some of them were almost unable to stand.
You simply would not get this in the UK, if you are over the limit, you don’t get a warning, you are off the road instantly for a minimum of 18 months.
The lowest fine you get is around $600, and thats for being only just over the limit, it goes up considerably from there. Once you include the increased cost of car insurance when you get your driving licence returned, which will go up to around $1200 minimum, drunk driving can get very expensive.
Go up to twice the drink drive limit and you are in prison.
Have a crash whilst drunk driving and life starts to get hard, you start at 6 weeks prison, for fender benders, it goes up from there.
We are highly intolerant of drink driving, I saw a story about a daughter who was in the passenger seat next to her mother. The mother was drunk, which the daughter claimed not a see at first, but as soon as her mothers drving became erratic she demanded to be let out, mom wouldn’t stop, so daughter got on the cell phone and placed an emergency call, cops stopper them, mother doesn’t have a driving licence any more, this only came to court yesterday, scour the BBC website and you might find it.
Here’s something of the type of thing.
We are slowly but steadily increasing our jail terms, they are too lenient for drunk drive killings, I have seen 9 years and 11 years for such events but these are right at the worst cases, they should be higher.
Here are the UK punishments for DUI.
http://www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/campaigns/drinkdrive/drinkdrive.htm
Our cars are considerably smaller than US cars, crash in one of our tin shoe boxes and there is an extremely good chance of being seriously injured or killed.
I can’t remember the per capita numbers, but IIRC the number of US drink driving deaths is several times ours, for the UK in 2004 around 500-600 were killed in drink related driving incidents and for the US in the same period it was around 17000. Given the differing population sizes, its still a very much higher drink driving death rate in the US, and yet the UK takes in more alchohol per person than the US person.
http://www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/campaigns/drinkdrive/drinkdrive.htm
I did find the figures for the UK, bt its on a very long .pdf file, its interesting to note that drink drving has declined in the UK, but no surprise either, I’ve known people cut their friends off stone cold when they found out they were drink drivers.