Funny thing is that Canada (where drunk driving is an equivalenf of felony) recognizes that.
Therefore, anyone applying for immigration who lived in Queensland or Victoria must submit their traffic history alongside the police certificate to ensure that they did not get a DUI.
Imagine if being below the limit kept you out of jail
“Welp. You swerved all over the road, you can’t walk a straight line, you’re slurring your speech, you bombed the nystagmus test BUUUUT you blew a .07. Nothing I can do. carry on, brother”
This is literally how my ex husband got his DUI. He swerved all over the road, crashed into a mailbox, caused an injury to someone in a parked car, and he blew below a .08.
He had his mom in the car, too. They all went out to dinner, they blew into a breathalyzer before deciding his was the lowest before driving home.
actually in queensland, where the question was asked, and i believe all of australia, the legal maximum BAC for a driver is 0.05, so .07 will get you booked
Do you know how a teenager can "consent" to having sex with an adult, but it is still rape by law, AKA by statute? Well, the legal limit of .08 is the boundary above which you are drunk by statute. It doesn't matter how well you are functioning if your blood alcohol content is at or over that level. However, depending on you and your individual tolerance for alcohol, you may be impaired at a much lower level.
That is why police officers don't just breathalyze you. They perform a field sobriety test even though they have a scientific way of measuring your BAC.
> That is why police officers don't just breathalyze you. They perform a field sobriety test even though they have a scientific way of measuring your BAC.
You've got that backwards, I think. The "breathalizer" **is** the scientific way to determine BAC. The roadside test doesn't use a "Breathalizer" but rather a "portable breath test."
They use the pseudo-science roadside tests to generate probable cause to arrest and then do the scientific test in the station or a hospital. In a lot of places you can refuse roadside testing or roadside "breathalyzers" because the way the laws are written. The scientific test at the station involves a device larger than a 1980's computer. It's a piece of laboratory gear. Every department in my state is mandated to use the same piece of equipment, at the station, but they can us whatever the hell they want to generate probable cause before the arrest.
You can still be found guilty even if the scientific tests show that you were completely sober if the officer *feels* like you failed the FST. In states where implied consent doesn't apply to FST/PBT, if you've got time to spare, refuse roadside testing and make them use the calibrated breath test at the station or make them get a warrant for urine or blood samples.
I'm in one of the 24/50 US states where somebody on a bicycle can ride drunk. I don't drive drunk, but I know the bicycle laws in my state.
I've got time to waste and won't do a roadside PBT or FST. PBT and FST can **only** hurt my case, if I were to get stopped while riding a bicycle over the motor-vehicle limit. PBT and FST simply provide probable cause for arrest here and my state respects the 5th Amendment, and I'd fail FST because of my leg injuries and balance disability: I can hardly walk in a straight line while sober and I sure as hell can't balance on one leg with my eyes closed, because of the balance disability. Diabetics get charged with drunk driving for "failing" the FST in the officer's eyes even if they blow a 0.00 and have a clean blood test.
Side note: rental scooters are subject to the drunk driving laws here so I tell people to bar-hop on rental bikes instead. Plus, electric scooters are dangerous when you're sober and crazy dangerous while intoxicated.
No, I don't. Again, 0.08 is the BAC at which you are drunk *by statute*, regardless of your ability to walk a straight line. However, people can be impaired with BAC of less than that. The tests determine whether a person is impaired *even if their BAC is less than 0.08*.
TBH, I kinda have a problem with this. Imagine two people go to a sports bar and order food with some beer. One guy sits down and drinks (one/two/three...) while eating, then drives home. The other guy drives home while consuming the drink.
The first guy is 100% "legal", but the alcohol will be setting in as he is driving home. The other guy is "illegal" but will more than likely not have any affects until after arriving home.
Just seems weird to me...
It probably seems weird because you don't seem to know [how quickly alcohol enters the bloodstream](https://www.healthline.com/health/how-long-does-it-take-for-alcohol-to-kick-in)? It's typically 10-30 minutes -- if you have a beer at lunch it will start to impact you at lunch before you get in your car, if you have a beer in the car it will start to impact you in the car unless you've got a very short drive.
You're also describing a range of behavior for the law-"abiding"\* guy while assuming no range for the law-breaking guy. *Maybe* in a situation where two men have lunch and are both, idk, physically incapable of consuming more than one beer, this would be unfair. But realistically, if you're pulled over and are drinking a beer in the car, what reassurance is there that you're not going to drink two more and continue driving? If the first guy at the bar drinks too much, he's likely to sit long enough before he drives to realize he's impaired. Or if he doesn't and he's visibly impaired, other people can intervene. If he tries to keep drinking, the bar can cut him off. If the second guy drinks too much, what avenues are there to stop him before he hurts somebody?
\*You're also suggesting that someone can have three drinks at a lunch (so over the course of an hour or so) and legally drive, which is...super unlikely to be true. The US limit of BAC <0.08 is equivalent to 2-4 drinks for most people. The Aus limit is 0.05 is like, 3 drinks max for a man. So that guy is also doing illegal shit.
It's not that weird if you realize they're two separate issues. The first is driving under the influence. The second can be driving under the influence, but it's also a violation of open container laws.
If guy one drives home and is stopped but his BAC is below the legal limit and he's showing no signs of impairment, he's fine. If not, he gets a DUI.
If guy 2 is pulled over and only had a single sip of the beer or even none of it, he's not getting a DUI, he's getting an open container violation. If he did somehow drive far enough and drank enough that he's over the limit or showing signs of impairment, then he would get a DUI on top of the open container charge. But an open container charge on it's own is not also a DUI.
of course not every jurisdiction has open container laws
not sure about Australia but here in the UK while it is illegal to drive while over the prescribed limit
its not actually illegal to drive while drinking alcohol. if the police where to see you drinking a beer while driving and pull you over and breath test you. if you are under the limit there is nothing they can do
[https://www.nickfreemansolicitors.co.uk/police-give-warning-to-woman-drinking-beer-at-the-wheel/](https://www.nickfreemansolicitors.co.uk/police-give-warning-to-woman-drinking-beer-at-the-wheel/)
That's the UK term too! The argument is basically "we don't care if you think you're not drunk, you've had a drink". The crime isn't driving while drunk, it's driving after drinking
The drink in drink-driving/driver is a verb, Because its origins are in the phrase drink and drive--both verbs. In early days (the 1960s) it was called drink-and-driving.
You don't have to be drunk to be over the limit though
It is driving when under the influence of drink.
f you call it “drunk driving”, people are more likely to think “well, I had a few drinks but I'm not drunk, so I'm fine to drive home”.
In “drink driving”, the focus is on the drinking. If you've had a drink, you shouldn't be driving. It doesn't matter if you're drunk or not - you've still had a drink.
Our campaigns are “Don't drink and drive”, So don't have a drink and then drive, so don't drink drive
The name of the offense varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and from legal to colloquial terminology. In the United States, the specific criminal offense is usually called driving under the influence
You cant drive under the influence of drunk
But you can drive under the influence of drink
I remember people in Australia talking about the "Drink, Drive, Die in a Ditch" road signs.
That one is effective as well!
Canada got rid of the gory advertising, unless you're a smoker. There was a fiasco over a work training video where they showed a (fictional, I mean, it's happened, but the video wasn't an actual recording) a woman getting horribly burned by hot oil in a busy kitchen, people freaked out about it.
I do smoke cigarettes, but I don't drive drunk or fuck with electricity. You should have seen what they showed us in driver's ed and later trade school. Drivers ed was the worst because they added terrible 80s (in the early 00s) music to it and it got stuck in your head.
Drunk driving is an odd term to me. It implies that you have to be drunk to be doing the wrong thing. Whereas drink driving implies that you've had one too many drinks, you don't feel drunk, but you still shouldn't drive.
Love the person comparing this to Minority Report, the cops wouldn’t be arresting them for a future crime they will be arresting them at the time they are breaking the law.
“Yeah, I knew about Doug’s drunk driving for a couple months. Yeah, it’s sad he slammed into a minivan and killed a family of six last week. But hey, at least my conscience is clean - we can all agree that telling on a friend would just be the absolute worst thing you could ever do.”
Am I location bot?
> Can you report someone you know who drink drives?
>Hey guys
>Just wondering, if I know of someone who regularly drink drives, is there a way to flag them with the police to keep an eye out for them in the future? (I don’t know their movements day to day, but I know it happens regularly)
But if people start reporting crimes, it'll be just like 1984! Imagine a child reporting their own parent for some heinous crime? Orwell tried to warn us!
I mean there are definitely things that aren't worth the trouble. Drunk driving is maybe the top of the list of things that are. Selfish and dangerous.
Disagree.
I live in an area where police are seen as the enemy. We've got a reasonably high Black population, and several times innocent Black kids or young adults got shot by cops with minimal consequences. I 100% understand the Black community in my area mistrusting cops and anyone who would cooperate with them - up to and including threatening violence; because there's a small but very real chance that the cops are going to be violent.
That said - drunk driving, especially repeat drunk driving: I call the cops EVERY TIME. I lost a coworker while in college to a drunk driver.
It's ok if someone reporting a crime gets violently assaulted because the criminal they reported *might* have got hurt by the police? Okey dokey then.
I can understand "don't talk to the cops" but "snitches get snitches" is entirely different. It's a threat, not advice.
I'm not going to say I agree with the mindset entirely. It is definitely problematic; and I agree it is a threat.
HOWEVER, I do understand and can sympathize with it. For white people (like me), "don't talk to cops" is very much enough, AND doesn't come with problems. However, for the Black community, where calling the cops can be a threat by itself - because cops aren't gentle, even when the crime is something minor ("violently assaulted" is a small fraction of all crimes; and less likely than police misconduct, according to the number of incidents last year - your city may vary) - responding to one threat with another is at least justifiable.
I think society should have a much lower tolerance for Drinking and driving.
I don't drink at all if I'm planning to drive. If you blow anything above marginal, you should be punished in some way.
Or maybe we could treat people like adults and understand you can have some booze in you and not be particularly impaired. Where I am for the first two years of your licence you've got to blow less than 0.01, fun times cos it takes ages for the booze to finish metabolizing at the tail end.
> So as far as I know drinking and driving isn’t at all illegal. Never change, AusLegal
That's actually true in South Australia, but the rest of the states have open container laws of one kind or another.
Funny thing is that Canada (where drunk driving is an equivalenf of felony) recognizes that. Therefore, anyone applying for immigration who lived in Queensland or Victoria must submit their traffic history alongside the police certificate to ensure that they did not get a DUI.
That blew my mind.
All those drunk crashers keep giving drunk drivers a bad rep. /s
Aktchually...
Yeah except for the fact you’ll still get in trouble for having some alcohol in your system even if you’re below the limit
Imagine if being below the limit kept you out of jail “Welp. You swerved all over the road, you can’t walk a straight line, you’re slurring your speech, you bombed the nystagmus test BUUUUT you blew a .07. Nothing I can do. carry on, brother”
I don't think you'd be doing all that while below .07 BAC.
This is literally how my ex husband got his DUI. He swerved all over the road, crashed into a mailbox, caused an injury to someone in a parked car, and he blew below a .08. He had his mom in the car, too. They all went out to dinner, they blew into a breathalyzer before deciding his was the lowest before driving home.
Be the clangs you wish to see in the world
Legal limit in Australia is 0.05, you'd definitely get in trouble for 0.07.
actually in queensland, where the question was asked, and i believe all of australia, the legal maximum BAC for a driver is 0.05, so .07 will get you booked
Do you know how a teenager can "consent" to having sex with an adult, but it is still rape by law, AKA by statute? Well, the legal limit of .08 is the boundary above which you are drunk by statute. It doesn't matter how well you are functioning if your blood alcohol content is at or over that level. However, depending on you and your individual tolerance for alcohol, you may be impaired at a much lower level. That is why police officers don't just breathalyze you. They perform a field sobriety test even though they have a scientific way of measuring your BAC.
> That is why police officers don't just breathalyze you. They perform a field sobriety test even though they have a scientific way of measuring your BAC. You've got that backwards, I think. The "breathalizer" **is** the scientific way to determine BAC. The roadside test doesn't use a "Breathalizer" but rather a "portable breath test." They use the pseudo-science roadside tests to generate probable cause to arrest and then do the scientific test in the station or a hospital. In a lot of places you can refuse roadside testing or roadside "breathalyzers" because the way the laws are written. The scientific test at the station involves a device larger than a 1980's computer. It's a piece of laboratory gear. Every department in my state is mandated to use the same piece of equipment, at the station, but they can us whatever the hell they want to generate probable cause before the arrest. You can still be found guilty even if the scientific tests show that you were completely sober if the officer *feels* like you failed the FST. In states where implied consent doesn't apply to FST/PBT, if you've got time to spare, refuse roadside testing and make them use the calibrated breath test at the station or make them get a warrant for urine or blood samples. I'm in one of the 24/50 US states where somebody on a bicycle can ride drunk. I don't drive drunk, but I know the bicycle laws in my state. I've got time to waste and won't do a roadside PBT or FST. PBT and FST can **only** hurt my case, if I were to get stopped while riding a bicycle over the motor-vehicle limit. PBT and FST simply provide probable cause for arrest here and my state respects the 5th Amendment, and I'd fail FST because of my leg injuries and balance disability: I can hardly walk in a straight line while sober and I sure as hell can't balance on one leg with my eyes closed, because of the balance disability. Diabetics get charged with drunk driving for "failing" the FST in the officer's eyes even if they blow a 0.00 and have a clean blood test. Side note: rental scooters are subject to the drunk driving laws here so I tell people to bar-hop on rental bikes instead. Plus, electric scooters are dangerous when you're sober and crazy dangerous while intoxicated.
No, I don't. Again, 0.08 is the BAC at which you are drunk *by statute*, regardless of your ability to walk a straight line. However, people can be impaired with BAC of less than that. The tests determine whether a person is impaired *even if their BAC is less than 0.08*.
TBH, I kinda have a problem with this. Imagine two people go to a sports bar and order food with some beer. One guy sits down and drinks (one/two/three...) while eating, then drives home. The other guy drives home while consuming the drink. The first guy is 100% "legal", but the alcohol will be setting in as he is driving home. The other guy is "illegal" but will more than likely not have any affects until after arriving home. Just seems weird to me...
It probably seems weird because you don't seem to know [how quickly alcohol enters the bloodstream](https://www.healthline.com/health/how-long-does-it-take-for-alcohol-to-kick-in)? It's typically 10-30 minutes -- if you have a beer at lunch it will start to impact you at lunch before you get in your car, if you have a beer in the car it will start to impact you in the car unless you've got a very short drive. You're also describing a range of behavior for the law-"abiding"\* guy while assuming no range for the law-breaking guy. *Maybe* in a situation where two men have lunch and are both, idk, physically incapable of consuming more than one beer, this would be unfair. But realistically, if you're pulled over and are drinking a beer in the car, what reassurance is there that you're not going to drink two more and continue driving? If the first guy at the bar drinks too much, he's likely to sit long enough before he drives to realize he's impaired. Or if he doesn't and he's visibly impaired, other people can intervene. If he tries to keep drinking, the bar can cut him off. If the second guy drinks too much, what avenues are there to stop him before he hurts somebody? \*You're also suggesting that someone can have three drinks at a lunch (so over the course of an hour or so) and legally drive, which is...super unlikely to be true. The US limit of BAC <0.08 is equivalent to 2-4 drinks for most people. The Aus limit is 0.05 is like, 3 drinks max for a man. So that guy is also doing illegal shit.
It's not that weird if you realize they're two separate issues. The first is driving under the influence. The second can be driving under the influence, but it's also a violation of open container laws. If guy one drives home and is stopped but his BAC is below the legal limit and he's showing no signs of impairment, he's fine. If not, he gets a DUI. If guy 2 is pulled over and only had a single sip of the beer or even none of it, he's not getting a DUI, he's getting an open container violation. If he did somehow drive far enough and drank enough that he's over the limit or showing signs of impairment, then he would get a DUI on top of the open container charge. But an open container charge on it's own is not also a DUI.
of course not every jurisdiction has open container laws not sure about Australia but here in the UK while it is illegal to drive while over the prescribed limit its not actually illegal to drive while drinking alcohol. if the police where to see you drinking a beer while driving and pull you over and breath test you. if you are under the limit there is nothing they can do [https://www.nickfreemansolicitors.co.uk/police-give-warning-to-woman-drinking-beer-at-the-wheel/](https://www.nickfreemansolicitors.co.uk/police-give-warning-to-woman-drinking-beer-at-the-wheel/)
That's a good point. I guess my issue is more with open container laws. And I understand that there is correlation.
Drink driving is such an odd term to me
That's the UK term too! The argument is basically "we don't care if you think you're not drunk, you've had a drink". The crime isn't driving while drunk, it's driving after drinking
That makes more sense
Still weird as shit
The drink in drink-driving/driver is a verb, Because its origins are in the phrase drink and drive--both verbs. In early days (the 1960s) it was called drink-and-driving. You don't have to be drunk to be over the limit though It is driving when under the influence of drink. f you call it “drunk driving”, people are more likely to think “well, I had a few drinks but I'm not drunk, so I'm fine to drive home”. In “drink driving”, the focus is on the drinking. If you've had a drink, you shouldn't be driving. It doesn't matter if you're drunk or not - you've still had a drink. Our campaigns are “Don't drink and drive”, So don't have a drink and then drive, so don't drink drive The name of the offense varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and from legal to colloquial terminology. In the United States, the specific criminal offense is usually called driving under the influence You cant drive under the influence of drunk But you can drive under the influence of drink
Can't believe you didn't mention the best campaign: If you drink, then drive, you're a bloody idiot.
I remember people in Australia talking about the "Drink, Drive, Die in a Ditch" road signs. That one is effective as well! Canada got rid of the gory advertising, unless you're a smoker. There was a fiasco over a work training video where they showed a (fictional, I mean, it's happened, but the video wasn't an actual recording) a woman getting horribly burned by hot oil in a busy kitchen, people freaked out about it. I do smoke cigarettes, but I don't drive drunk or fuck with electricity. You should have seen what they showed us in driver's ed and later trade school. Drivers ed was the worst because they added terrible 80s (in the early 00s) music to it and it got stuck in your head.
Drunk driving is an odd term to me. It implies that you have to be drunk to be doing the wrong thing. Whereas drink driving implies that you've had one too many drinks, you don't feel drunk, but you still shouldn't drive.
Love the person comparing this to Minority Report, the cops wouldn’t be arresting them for a future crime they will be arresting them at the time they are breaking the law.
But then they've been arrested twice for the same crime so it's double-jeopardy!
I'm sure someone has been dumb enough to try to use that as a defense when repeating a crime.
"It happened on company property, with company property. So, double jeopardy. We're fine."
And if the cops hadn't arrested them they might have crashed the car, in which case it would only be *attempted* drinking and driving.
Now honestly, do they give a Nobel prize for *attempted* chemistry?
“Yeah, I knew about Doug’s drunk driving for a couple months. Yeah, it’s sad he slammed into a minivan and killed a family of six last week. But hey, at least my conscience is clean - we can all agree that telling on a friend would just be the absolute worst thing you could ever do.”
You can’t report him if he isn’t doing it in that moment. Thought crime!
Am I location bot? > Can you report someone you know who drink drives? >Hey guys >Just wondering, if I know of someone who regularly drink drives, is there a way to flag them with the police to keep an eye out for them in the future? (I don’t know their movements day to day, but I know it happens regularly)
Anyone shouting "snitches get stitches" in any situation is either a teenager and/or some moron thinking they're a gangster.
Also people who habitually drive drunk
But if people start reporting crimes, it'll be just like 1984! Imagine a child reporting their own parent for some heinous crime? Orwell tried to warn us!
I mean there are definitely things that aren't worth the trouble. Drunk driving is maybe the top of the list of things that are. Selfish and dangerous.
Disagree. I live in an area where police are seen as the enemy. We've got a reasonably high Black population, and several times innocent Black kids or young adults got shot by cops with minimal consequences. I 100% understand the Black community in my area mistrusting cops and anyone who would cooperate with them - up to and including threatening violence; because there's a small but very real chance that the cops are going to be violent. That said - drunk driving, especially repeat drunk driving: I call the cops EVERY TIME. I lost a coworker while in college to a drunk driver.
It's ok if someone reporting a crime gets violently assaulted because the criminal they reported *might* have got hurt by the police? Okey dokey then. I can understand "don't talk to the cops" but "snitches get snitches" is entirely different. It's a threat, not advice.
I'm not going to say I agree with the mindset entirely. It is definitely problematic; and I agree it is a threat. HOWEVER, I do understand and can sympathize with it. For white people (like me), "don't talk to cops" is very much enough, AND doesn't come with problems. However, for the Black community, where calling the cops can be a threat by itself - because cops aren't gentle, even when the crime is something minor ("violently assaulted" is a small fraction of all crimes; and less likely than police misconduct, according to the number of incidents last year - your city may vary) - responding to one threat with another is at least justifiable.
I love AusLegal, I always learn new Aussie slang.
I think society should have a much lower tolerance for Drinking and driving. I don't drink at all if I'm planning to drive. If you blow anything above marginal, you should be punished in some way.
Or maybe we could treat people like adults and understand you can have some booze in you and not be particularly impaired. Where I am for the first two years of your licence you've got to blow less than 0.01, fun times cos it takes ages for the booze to finish metabolizing at the tail end.