“I’m fine to drive because I’ve not had a drink today”. Or, “I’m fine to drive because I have not drunk anything for hours”. Both are things you will hear people say on a regular basis.
Calculating when you are safe to drive is incredibly complex and many drivers have wound up facing DUI charges because their calculations were incorrect.
How long does alcohol stay in your system?
The average rate for processing alcohol is 0.015 BAC per hour which roughly equates to one standard drink. So one standard drink, one hour. Two standard drinks, two hours and so on.
Yet these are very rough estimations and you could easily get it wrong:
Not all drinks are the same. People don’t always drink a standard glass of beer, nor a standard glass of wine. The alcohol content can vary immensely between particular examples of each. Also, not all glasses or bottles or measures are the same size. The wine your best friend pours you after a hard day may well be much larger than what a bartender would serve you, for instance.
There is no real average person either. There are genetic differences between men and women and between some races that affect the ability to process alcohol. An individual’s body weight also affects how fast they process alcohol. What’s more, the same individual could process alcohol faster or slower from one day to the next.
Avoiding the risk of drinking and driving altogether is best. If however you are stopped by the police and appear to have miscalculated how much you could drink or when you were safe to drive remember it need not end there. You still might have a chance to contest the charges, for example by showing that the breathalyzer you blew into was inaccurate. Learning more about this and other defense options is wise if you find yourself in such a difficult situation.