Drink-Drive Warning

Date published: 17/12/2004

If you are going out for a drink this Christmas, please leave the car at home. That's the message from Rochdale Council's road safety unit. And if you think that having just a little drink leaves you fit to drive, the following information might be a sobering thought. If you drink half a pint of ordinary strength beer, after just 10 minutes, 50% of the alcohol consumed will have been absorbed into the bloodstream. After an hour, all the alcohol will have been absorbed. Your body will absorb alcohol faster when you drink on an empty stomach. Long drinks made with mixers have a faster effect as they enter the bloodstream quicker. So once the alcohol is in your bloodstream, how fast can your body get rid of it?

If you have been out for an evening's drinking, by midnight, there may be 200mg of alcohol per 100ml in the blood. You get up at 7.30 next morning, and there is still 90mg per 100ml. You are still over the legal limit and unfit to drive. By lunchtime, elimination has continued to around 20mg per 100ml. But your driving may still be impaired. It is impossible to speed up alcohol elimination. Neither a shower, nor a cup of coffee, nor other ways of "sobering up" will help. It just takes time.

Remember, getting rid of alcohol is a slow process, requiring hours rather than minutes.