Drinking and Driving

Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:38 am

One of the kids at my school last year was in an accident with a drunk driver... A guy went through 3 red lights, causing 4 accidents, 5 ambulances were required for everyone, and I believe a few people died also... But the kid wasn't hurt, and I don't feel too bad because I have also heard from a druggie that he was a drug dealer... But they should have their lisences revoked...

Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:48 am

ahoteinrun wrote:People who drink and drive, should have their liscences revoked permenantly. End of story.

I was going to say something about the fact that many people who are irresponsible enough to drink and drive are also the sorts that won't have a problem with driving without a license but Setekh beat me to it. I know a few people that do this and I've had numerous rambles to my Mum about my opinion on the issues.

What I find most saddening about drink driving is the fact that a lot of the time its other people that suffer from the drink driving. If the drink driver cares so little for themselves and wants to take themselves out, great, but risking all the other people on the roads is just wrong on so many levels.

Sun Mar 13, 2005 7:00 am

Feel free to take it off if it offends anyone, but

I just kind of had to do it... you know?

Website · Sun Mar 13, 2005 8:13 am

My best friend died when a drunk driver hit her on her way home from school. She died on impact - she was even wearing her seatbelt. She was so smart and kind. She and I would of graduated together this coming June. We even wanted to go to the same University. We even wanted to go to medical school together.

I kind of found out about it really abruptly too. She was taken to the hospital I was volunteering at. I couldn't even recognize her. Horrible. She was only 16.

Sun Mar 13, 2005 12:04 pm

If they can go as far as banning drink and drving, why not ban drug and driving? I say it'll cost the government too much to money and time. They'd need more police officers driving around doing nothing but look around for possible drink/drug drivers. Its something the government arent willing to do right now.

Sun Mar 13, 2005 12:33 pm

Medusa wrote:
Twinkle wrote:It's just odd that some people retain alchohol in their system long after they've finished drinking.

Most of the time it depends on how much the person drinks, I think on average most people's livers can only break-down 1 standard drink an hour so if they've had a few it might take awhile to completely get out of their system. I personally hate driving the day after I've been out drinking, in fact I stayed at a friends place one time until a number of hours after lunch so that I'd had more time to break-down the alcohol I'd been drinking.

Thats true, the breakdown of alcohol is one of the drugs where the speed you break it down is the same however much you have in your system (whereas many chemicals you break it down faster when thre's more in your system). And this means if you go out and drink loads you will still have alcohol in your system. i know i've woken up the morning after a nite out and still felt drunk (but i would never drive, dont worry!).

In a lot of cities they have police cars around brethalising people the morning after, because a lot of people dont realise they'r still over the limit when they are. And it serves them right if they get points or whatever the morning after, if you have to drive early in the morning dont drink so much the night before! i know we came home early on friday nite coz my housemate had to drive saturday morning and didnt want to be over the limit.

And saying you didnt know you were still over the limit is also not an excuse, because you can buy mini breathaliser kits in halfords for a couple of quid!

Medusa wrote:In Australia people aren't allowed to exceed a BAC of 0.05 (have 0.05 grams of alcohol in their body for every 100 millilitres of their blood) if they're on a full license. Learner drivers are not allowed any traces of alcohol in their systems and Provisional drivers can only have 0.02 (which is basically an allowance for alcohol contents that may be in meals, mouth-sprays, etc).

That's true, but they hand out little cards on how much you can drink before you are over the limit. If i remember correctly its 2 drinks in the first hour and one per hour after that for blokes, and one in the first hour and one per hour after that for women. I think this is just soooo stupid, as they are actually telling people they can drink and then drive, it should say dont drink at all if you're driving.

Sun Mar 13, 2005 2:13 pm

I think in the past year the state of Pennsylvania lowered the legal BAC from .08 to .06 but I am not totally sure. For minors it is .02, but it's illegal to drunk under the age of 21 so they are busted no matter what if they have a BAC.

Mon Mar 14, 2005 3:39 am

since august, about 6-8 teenagers have died in my county because of alcohol-related accidents.
people just dont learn.

Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:42 pm

Tinkerbell wrote:If they can go as far as banning drink and drving, why not ban drug and driving? I say it'll cost the government too much to money and time. They'd need more police officers driving around doing nothing but look around for possible drink/drug drivers. Its something the government arent willing to do right now.

Actually my husband's ex girl friend (who still hangs out with my sister in law and that's how I found out) got arrested and ehr license revoked for almsot two years becasue she was driving under teh influence of drugs.

Drunk driving makes me sick...and to make it worse, my sister in law drives her daughter home after shes had a lot to drink. She an alcoholic. Yet my inlaws find no wrong with this, becasue it's thier daughter and shes as innocent as a new born bunny and could never do anything wrong. </sarcasm>

Unfortunatly my husband and I aren't there when she does this, or we would call the cops...

Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:01 am

Testimony presented here seems to have answered my query at least. I don't know anyone that advocates the use of alcohol or other drugs (of any amount) prior to getting behind the wheel.

Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:39 am

When I first got my licence, I thought the same... why would you want to drive, if you'd been drinking at all? I thought it was just silly and way to risky.

These days, though... I tend to think there are degrees to which it is alright to drive with alcohol in your blood. Quite often me and my friends will go to a barbecue in the evening, and want to have a beer with food... just as a casual thing. In that situation, I don't see any problem with driving home a few hours later. The idea that you could be fined (or lose your licence) for having the smallest amount of alcohol in your blood, seems a bit harsh to me.

I agree that drink, drunk, driving is really stupid. But I guess it's hard to judge just those degrees... of when it is okay for someone to drive, and when it isn't.

Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:48 am

our school's mock trial team made it to the last round of county finals so i went to support last night. the case was about a 16 year old boy whose car flipped over and killed 2 passangers plus another man who was in another car. they boy had a beer (as our team, the defense, said, he "nursed the same beer all afternoon"), then drove hom with 3 other people in his car. he sped up, hit the median, flipped over 5 times and landed upside down.

by the way, the defense won.
and it wasnt an actual case.
but it still relates.