Somebody's been on the altar wine...

[Gob]

Legal concentration of alcohol limits

If you are driving the concentration of alcohol in your body must remain below a legally set level, known as the prescribed concentration.

From 1 December 2010, the prescribed concentration for those driver's classed as 'special drivers', was reduced from 0.02 grams to zero.

You are a special driver if:

the person is not the holder of an Australian driver licence, an external territory driver licence or a foreign driver licence from a recognised country; or
the person holds a foreign driver licence that:
is not issued under the law of a recognised country; or
if the licence is issued under the law of a recognised country – is a licence that corresponds to a learner licence, provisional licence, probationary licence or a restricted licence.
the person's Australian driver licence or external driver licence is suspended
the person is disqualified from holding or obtaining an Australian driver licence by a court in Australia or under the law of any jurisdiction
the person holds a learner licence, provisional licence, probationary licence or restricted licence within the meaning given by the Road Transport (Driver Licensing) Act 1999, dictionary
the person is the holder of an Australian driver licence and is driving a motor vehicle of a kind that the person is not authorised to drive by the licence

You are also a special driver if the person is the driver of:

a vehicle on which a sign, marking or placard is required to be displayed under the Dangerous Substances Act 2004 or the Dangerous Goods (Road Transport) Act 2009
a motor vehicle with a GVM of more than 15 tonne
a combination with a GCM of more than 15 tonne
a public passenger vehicle
the person is learning to drive a heavy vehicle
the person is a driving instructor who is with a driver for the purposes of driver instruction or driver assessment
the person is a heavy vehicle driver assessor who is with a driver for the purposes of driver assessment
the person is a driving supervisor who is with a person who holds a learner licence (a learner driver) while the learner driver drives a motor vehicle that displays, or ought to display, L plates on a road or road related area.

Subsection (1) (a) does not apply to a person who is exempt from holding a driver licence under the Road Transport (Driver Licensing) Act 1999.

You need to find out whether you are a special driver, as special drivers are subject to a zero concentration of alcohol in their body.

For other drivers, the prescribed concentration of alcohol in a person's blood or breath is 0.05 grams.

This means that these drivers must not drive or ride a motor vehicle if they have a concentration of alcohol in their blood or breath of 0.05 grams or more.

http://www.police.act.gov.au/roads-and- ... iving.aspx

[Econoline]

And...does it work?

Are there actually fewer impaired drivers on the road in Australia--or in Europe--than in the U.S.? Any statistics available?

[Gob]

Don't know mate?

[Scooter]

And...does it work?

Are there actually fewer impaired drivers on the road in Australia--or in Europe--than in the U.S.? Any statistics available?

It's meaningless to compare if the definition of impairment is different. It might be more meaningful to compare deaths and/or serious injuries attributable to impaired driving, but even that is fraught with difficulty.

[BoSoxGal]

On DUI laws in other countries:

Comparison of International DUI laws

From the folks who know, NHTSA. From 2000; I'll look for something more recent.

eta: It's time I learned; how do I replace the URL with my own (shorter) title?

[Gob]

...this is what I want you to look at....

[Jarlaxle]

As someone who sees DUI cases every day & lives in the state with the highest DUI mortality rate, I vehemently disagree.

Yes, I support bans on driving while using a cell phone.

Totally unenforceable. Offhand, the only way to know if Liz is on the phone is to be in the vehicle with her. She is far from the only one where that is the case.

[Jarlaxle]

Right, and .05 is NOT that low. I suspect anyone who thinks so has never participated in a wet lab to see just how affected some individuals are by just a couple of drinks. Coordination and response time are significantly affected beginning at .02 - the studies are incontrovertible. A few seconds can make all the difference in a potential accident situation.

Again, the difference in attitude between those who have felt DUI's devastating impact on a loved one versus those who haven't - yet - is generally striking.

Depends on the person...I suspect I would be near-unconcious at .04, my aunt looked & acted totally sober after her fourth drink.

Dales is correct, .04 (might even be .02 now) is the limit for commercial drivers.

[rubato]

As someone who sees DUI cases every day & lives in the state with the highest DUI mortality rate, I vehemently disagree.

Yes, I support bans on driving while using a cell phone.

Totally unenforceable. Offhand, the only way to know if Liz is on the phone is to be in the vehicle with her. She is far from the only one where that is the case.

It is easy to check after an accident and see if the phone was in use when it happened. They should just use 'enhancements', like impounding and selling the car if you caused an accident while texting or talking on the phone.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

"... IMO anything under .08 (and I'm even sketchy on that but I tend to err on the side of the individual) as a cause of bad driving is a red herring for poor driving skills in general. ... "

This is a well-studied area. Anything over 0.01 is measurably impaired. more than 11 times as likely to cause a fatal crash (for levels between 0.05 and 0.09 BAC) is a huge increase:


http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa31.htm

"...
Research has documented that the risk of a motor vehicle crash increases as BAC increases (3,4,8) and that the more demanding the driving task, the greater the impairment caused by low doses of alcohol (3). Compared with drivers who have not consumed alcohol, the risk of a single-vehicle fatal crash for drivers with BAC's between 0.02 and 0.04 percent is estimated to be 1.4 times higher; for those with BAC's between 0.05 and 0.09 percent, 11.1 times higher; for drivers with BAC's between 0.10 and 0.14 percent, 48 times higher; and for those with BAC's at or above 0.15 percent, the risk is estimated to be 380 times higher (8).
... "

yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

You're also measurably impaired by listening to the radio and a plethora of other things done regularly while driving. (many of which can actually counteract other more severe forms of impairment) It not so much a question of if there is impairment but establishing an acceptable level of impairment

[Scooter]

This was an interesting study on the effect (or lack thereof) of criminal penalties:

The study examined almost 3,300 people convicted of an impaired-driving offence, and found 57 per cent of them offended again at least once, within five years on average.

And the severity of the first sentence had no impact on the behaviour of repeat offenders.

“There was no evidence to suggest that the imposition of a fine or imprisonment had any effect on the likelihood of whether an offender would re-offend or not,” the author concludes.

“This indicates that the severity of the sentence received did not deter offenders in this sample.”

“Reconviction rates for all individuals were similar regardless of the sentence received for the initial impaired driving conviction.”

[BoSoxGal]

We will have to agree to disagree on this one, CP. Get back to me when you've viewed as many DUI processing videos as I have and tell me you want those folks - from .08 to .34 - on the road with you and your infant son.

Right now we are prosecuting a guy who figured a few beers was no big deal over dinner before riding his 8 yr old son home on his motorcycle. Kid adored/trusted dad, of course. Kid's dead, dad's severely injured, mom & other kids are starting life over without both of them. He was only .1-something. Like listening to the radio.

[Andrew D]

Sometimes bad shit just happens.

Someone near and dear to me killed a child with his car.

He was driving in the early-morning darkness. He was doing everything right. (He was completely sober, all the tests confirmed that, and the accident-reconstruction people confirmed that he had done nothing wrong.)

In the dark, a kid wearing dark clothing and with his ears blocked by earbuds (or whatever they're called) stepped out into the road. The driver did his best to avoid a collision. It didn't work.

The car hit the kid, and the kid died.

The driver had to deal with having killed a kid. Months of therapy. (He's doing well now.)

The driver has kids of his own. He had to try to explain to his own children that he had killed someone else's child. Not his fault. A bad thing that happened.

Still, that kid's mother and father were standing over their child's grave, mourning a loss that cannot be refilled. And the driver did it. It wasn't his fault -- the kid's parents have recognized that it wasn't the driver's fault -- but he did it. And he has to live with that.

Would it have made any difference if he had had some blood alcohol? The accident-reconstruction people determined that he had done nothing wrong.

Had he had a blood-alcohol level over the legal limit and done exactly what he did -- according to everyone, exactly the right things -- would his blood-alcohol level have made any difference?

[rubato]

You're also measurably impaired by listening to the radio and a plethora of other things done regularly while driving. (many of which can actually counteract other more severe forms of impairment) It not so much a question of if there is impairment but establishing an acceptable level of impairment

More than 11 times as likely to cause a fatal accident is a reasonable standard.

Try to address the data?


yrs,
rubato

[alice]

I think if by the time you did an in depth report on all the things that cause impaired driving and did an active comparison of them all allot of the screaming of blood for low BAC offenders would cease. IMO anything under .08 (and I'm even sketchy on that but I tend to err on the side of the individual) as a cause of bad driving is a red herring for poor driving skills in general. When it conse down to it just about anything and everything (Including prolonged Driving) causes impaired Driving and depending on circumstances and individual many of these factors can mitigate or inflame others in combination.

At a certain point we have to stop nitpicking bogeyman and let bad driving be its own punishment (and boy do I wish half of the day to day asinine driving I see day to day (in full view of cops no less) get the tickets they deserve.

In the Northern Territory quite a few years ago, the limit was .08 when the rest of Australia was .05. NT was adamant that this was a suitable limit, but the federal Govt put a lot of pressure on them, and in the end threatened to withdraw all funding for roadworks etc if they did not bow down to the Federal Govts order/demand to make the limit .05. So NT bowed down, extraemely reluctantly and made it very clear that it was only because of Federal Govt bully tactics. What NT found at the time was that it made not a scrap of difference to the road toll or accident rate, but did make a difference to the amount of revenue raised through random breath testing (which is usede to help fund the costs of things like roadworks etc). At the time there were people in NT doing statistics and they were readlily available - I don't have the time or real knowhow to go searching, but remember it being well publicised at the time.

Just recently there was a similar type of thing over speed limits. NT used to have unrestriced speed limits outside urban areas - they had huge distances of desert roads and not many accideents considering the lack of restrictions. Now they have been made to have restrictionhs on all roads - out in the middle of nowhere the limit is 100kph or 110kph (c an't remember which). However, the toll hasn't reduced. The people having accidents are still the people that would have had those accidents anyway - reckless driving, inexperienced driving (including overseas tourists not used to the conditions etc), people who are extremely inebriated, people who are ignoring any road rules whatever they are, people driving extremely unroadworthy cars. etc etc.

I think there were stats on the speed limit thing as well - I'm sure there would have been - but again I don't have a lot of know how when it coms to searching for that sort of thing. I know that for quite a while (over years) the local newspaper used to quite regularly do articles and updates on it all, because both issues were such thorns to thye Territorian population.

[Scooter]

Well, the Northern Territory is in a class by itself...you could probably drive blindfolded for 100mi and not run the risk of hitting anything else.

[alice]

"... IMO anything under .08 (and I'm even sketchy on that but I tend to err on the side of the individual) as a cause of bad driving is a red herring for poor driving skills in general. ... "

This is a well-studied area. Anything over 0.01 is measurably impaired. more than 11 times as likely to cause a fatal crash (for levels between 0.05 and 0.09 BAC) is a huge increase:


http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa31.htm

"...
Research has documented that the risk of a motor vehicle crash increases as BAC increases (3,4,8) and that the more demanding the driving task, the greater the impairment caused by low doses of alcohol (3). Compared with drivers who have not consumed alcohol, the risk of a single-vehicle fatal crash for drivers with BAC's between 0.02 and 0.04 percent is estimated to be 1.4 times higher; for those with BAC's between 0.05 and 0.09 percent, 11.1 times higher; for drivers with BAC's between 0.10 and 0.14 percent, 48 times higher; and for those with BAC's at or above 0.15 percent, the risk is estimated to be 380 times higher (8).
... "

yrs,
rubato

You're also measurably impaired by listening to the radio and a plethora of other things done regularly while driving. (many of which can actually counteract other more severe forms of impairment) It not so much a question of if there is impairment but establishing an acceptable level of impairment

More than 11 times as likely to cause a fatal accident is a reasonable standard.

Try to address the data?


yrs,
rubato

The data is from a site that is 'The national Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism'. I would presume that any data they present would certainly be in support of the message they have,
I don't disagree with the message regarding alcohol abuse, by the way; just saying that it isn't the most unbiased source.

The particular quote you used is talkiing about "estimations", so is still sounding a little bit unclear. I'd have to read the article in full (and I don't have that sort of time, my apologoes), but the source for that quote, according to the article, is" [8) Zador, P.L. Alcohol-related relative risk of fatal driver injuries in relation to driver age and sex. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 52(4):302-310, 1991"
Just from the article title - I agree there is a high incidence of accidents which involve young drivers, speed, and alcohol - the combined factors of inexpreience, youthful feelings of immortality and bravado, peer pressure, youthful exhuberance and a tendency to want to show off, and combined with a lack of experiencein handling alcohol, are a potent mix, and one that has been recognised.
That's why we have laws in various states etc in Australia and New Zealand that try to put restrictions on young, inexperienced drivers - zero alcohol, curfews, limits on the numbers of passengers allowed in the cars, extended time of 'P' (probationary) plates, etc. That's also why car insurance premiums are so high and excess rates are so high in the under 25 age bracket (and that's without consideration of the alcohol factor, because if they even have .001, in the event of an accident,their insurance policy is void anyway)
I do 100% agree on extended restrictions for young inexperienced drivers - I have three in the 18-25 bracket and it is reassuring to know that there are measures in place to help (as much as possible: I'm sure they and their mates and any young person will perhaps not quite follow the law if they think they can get away with a bit of 'hooning' and 'fun') - but I don't agree with any statistic that isolates one factor only, such as alcohol. There are too many variables.

And the variables include all those I already mentioned in this and the previous post, plus tiredness and inattention.

[Scooter]

Presumably a peer reviewed study would have controlled for as many of those other factors as possible.

[Crackpot]

Texting, applying make-up, eating and talking on a cell phone all of which are comparable if not far worse impairment factors than a .08 BAC none are treated near as harshly. Who is not addressing the data?