Drink driving – the real cost

07 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment

by hiperactive in Family Information, Health Tips, Legal Tips Tags: Binge Drinking, Drink Driving

The government has been making a concerted effort to try and raise awareness of drink driving and its dangers by running their “Think!” campaign to highlight the way that driving under the influence of alcohol can ruin lives, and carrying out over half a million breath tests every year.

There are on average 3,000 people seriously hurt or killed on our roads every year due to drink driving and nearly 1 in 6 of all road deaths involve drivers who are over the legal limit for driving. It is more commonly young men between 17 and their late twenties who are involved, but they are by no means the only age group that drive while under the influence of alcohol. There has been an increase of female drink driving incidents over the past couple of years.

The effects of alcohol in your blood stream, whether you feel drunk or not, can include things like your reactions being slower so you need a larger stopping distance, misjudging the speed or distance of other vehicles or obstacles in your path, and your field of vision may reduce. Drinking also tends to make you feel overconfident, a danger in itself, as it will increase the likelihood of you making a bad decision and take unnecessary risks while you are behind the wheel making you a danger not just to yourself but other road users and pedestrians as well.

Although the legal limit (at time of writing) is 80 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, this can be hard to judge as it varies depending on your weight, age, metabolism and gender, as well as what you have eaten prior to starting to drink, your levels of stress, and the type and amount of alcohol you consume. The only way to be completely sure you are under the legal limit for driving, is not to drink alcohol at all if you are planning to drive.

It is also worth remembering that if you have had a drink the night before, that you may well still be over the limit the following morning. The only thing that will break down alcohol in your system is time – showers, cups of coffee and other helpful tips from your mates won’t make any difference.

The penalities if you are caught drink driving are severe, you can face up to 6 months in jail, a fine of up to £5,000 and a minimum 12 month driving ban. The endorsement for drink-driving offences will stay on your licence for 11 years. If you refuse to provide a specimen of either breath, blood, or urine for analysis when asked will also incur up to 6 months in jail, a fine of up to £5,000 and a minimum 12 month driving ban.

If you have been found to be over the legal limit and deemed to have been driving under the influence of alcohol it is important for you to seek legal advice as soon as possible. There are many solicitors who can advise you, you can search for motoring law solicitors online, in your local phonebook or get recommendations from people you know who may know of a smaller, local motoring lawyer like Richard Brown & Co in Peterborough, who specialise in this area of law.