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0.05% Alcohol Law

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  • 10-05-2008 2:05am
    #1
    osuchasenuts
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2 ✭


    So I currently live in Portland - USA, and our laws for drinking are 0.08% alcohol in the blood system. They do not randomly check drivers, nor set up check stops to test everyone. Basically, you only get caught if you are hammered and screw up driving.

    In NSW, it looks like its 0.05%, and there are random checks often from what I have read online. If Australia's national drink is beer, how can people enjoy it so much and drive without worrying about police? It seems like people would be getting caught left and right! 0.05% is pretty low to me...


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    #2
    Jagera
    Closed Accounts Posts: 910 ✭✭✭Jagera


    osuchasenuts wrote: »
    In NSW, it looks like its 0.05%, and there are random checks often from what I have read online

    It's .05 nationally, not just NSW, and you get stopped in a lot of states regularly. By regularly I would guess somewhere between zero and five times a year. NSW are a bit more frequent though from my days living there.

    osuchasenuts wrote: »
    .. Basically, you only get caught if you are hammered and screw up driving...

    ... In NSW, .. there are random checks often

    prevention vs cure you could say...
    osuchasenuts wrote: »
    If Australia's national drink is beer

    thats news to me...


    Either way, .05 is low and so it should be. If you are a provisional driver (i.e. you are in your first 3 years of full drivers) the BAC (blood alcohol content) is 0.00%

    People do get caught a lot and the desire is to stop people getting pissed and killing people.

    Portland may not really have much trouble with drink drivers anyway?? So there's no need to police it.


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    #3
    The Sweeper
    Registered Users Posts: 10,658 ✭✭✭✭The Sweeper


    osuchasenuts wrote: »
    If Australia's national drink is beer, how can people enjoy it so much and drive without worrying about police?

    ...they don't.

    It's like everywhere else - if you drink and drive and get caught, you'll do the punishment, which can be pretty severe. And routine breathalysing tests are common here. The main thoroughfares out of the city of Melbourne are policed virtually every night of the week by the booze buses - police coaches full of equipment to test for alcohol and drugs in your system on the spot.

    Out rural where I am, the police watch the main thoroughfares and recognised recreational spots for drink drivers. In my experience the position of designated driver rotates - there will also be some people who like a drink or two, but don't like to get hammered, so they might have two drinks with dinner at 7pm and then move to soft drinks, and at 11pm they're fit to drive everyone else home.

    Some people do drink and drive, because when you're rural and you live 10km of dirt track back roads away from the house of the neighbour you were drinking with, well, some people choose to take their chances - usually because they're highly unlikely to meet another car on the drive home, let alone the police. Still, it's dangerous, and it's stupid - they might meet another car, they might run off the road into a ditch, there's the kangaroos... However I wouldn't say people drink and drive and then 'not worry about the police'.


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