Talk:Blood alcohol content

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[edit] China Limit?

Does China have a BAC limit?

[edit] Request for external link addition

  • I would like to make a formal request to add http://www.celtickane.com/projects/bac.php to the external links section of this page. It is my own website, so I wouldn't like to add it myself, but I would prefer that someone else review the website, and make the decision to add it. It is an interactive BAC calculator that is based on a formula from the US Department of Transportation. --Sugarskane 03:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

If you mean underage drivers as in people who aren't old enough to drive this seems odd - like shooting somebody and being charged for excessive noise. Do you mean that drivers below the drinking age have a lower limit (i.e. effectively no alcohol, because they're not supposed to be drinking?


Oddly, underage refers not to driving before the legal age, but drinking before the legal age. Alcohol purchase and posession laws would seem to preclude "underage drinking" and therefore "underage drunken driving."

No, underage drinking isn't illegal, underage purchase and possession is. There's nothing illegal in the US about giving 14-year-olds wine with dinner.

However, states pass laws limiting BAC for underage drunken drivers above 0.0% (often at 0.08%). Perhaps this is a commetary on the legal system's opinion of the baseline capacity of teen drivers.... Less alcohol need be present to define an underage drunken driver as too impared to drive. --BrantEaton

I see what you're getting at, but the phrase underage drunken driving suggests there's a legal age for drunken driving. :) Verloren

Sorry, my hair-splitting implements are all dull from too frequent use :) I'm sure the actual statute utilizes excruciatingly clear language :) I think we'll have to be satisifed that "underage" modifies the phrase "drunken driving," qualifying the activity by considering age. Personal perspective notwithstanding, no explicit suggestion exists indicating inebriated handling of a vehicle is permissible if the operator is above a minimum age. --BrantEaton

On Wikipedia:Peer review, Mike Church expressed POV concerns about the following paragraph (written by him (?)).

"Despite the liberal intoxication limits of many countries, one should not assume that driving with a BAC rating of, say, .079% is safe. At a BAC rating of 0.05%, the probability of a driver having an accident is more than four times its base level. Despite this, some drivers believe their driving actually improves with small amounts of alcohol. This assertion is completely false: Their perception of their driving improves because they are more relaxed, but their actual motor competence is markedly lower than when sober. "

In responding to this concern, I would say: cite your sources, e.g. "Research by Dr. T. Totaller found that a BAC level of 0.05% quadrupled the probability of a driving accident (see references)." I don't think the above paragraph is demonstrates a particularly strong bias, but if anyone does happen to think that, reporting the claims of experts is the way to go.

In terms of giving advice, simply reporting the fact that intoxication increases the odds of an accident is providing information, but not giving advice. If we wrote, "So don't drink and drive, knucklehead," that would be giving advice ;-). -- Cyan 02:25, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I saw this come up on peer review as well. I second Cyan's comments above.

But what I do think would really make this article more approachable is if it used the statitics to show how much a person could drink in the USA and still drive, and how much is believed the affect someone's ability to drive. Eg (with made up figures) "Under American law, an average person may drive after consuming 3 pints of beer (6 units of alcohol), however studies x and y show that the average person's ability to drive is affected after only half a pint of beer (one unit)."

Then, once people have a sense of the amounts involved, you can go on to give the detailed explanation why it's the blood alcohol content which is measured not the number of drinks you've had, and you can't rely on these "average" figures. It might also be interesting to include information on what level of alcohol in the blood is usually fatal, and the highest recorded cases of people exceeding this and survivng (alcoholics may build up a tolerance). Eg [1]. fabiform | talk 23:05, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Maybe the political background for setting a limit should be mentioned. I suspect that the numbers reflect the culture; is alcohol considered "A Bad Thing" (Sweden), are people allowed to take their own responsibility, is a risk acceptable?

I believe that Sweden has a max of 0.02%, not 0%. A limit below 0.02% would mean that driving after eating a piece of ripe fruit constitutes a traffic violation if you're unlucky.

How much alcohol is 'one drink' in milliliters of pure ethanol? Standard sizes of glasses vary wildly between countries. -- Hankwang 16:38, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)


I reverted gender -> sex, which is indeed correct. Sex is biological, whereas gender is personal identity. I.e. a male -> female transgender would be biologically male, or of male sex, but of female gender. Mike Church 17:41, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Nice article, a few corrections

1 BAC is literally blood alcohol content, not breath alcohol content. The Breathalyzer simply estimates BAC after measuring breath alcohol.

2 Old version Measured with a machine commonly referred to as a Breathalyzer ... BAC is used as an ideally objective (and therefore, legally uncontestable) measure of the level of impairment of an individual,

I changed it because it is literally false. BAC is used as an objective legal proxy for degree of intoxication, which in turn is only a rough guide to degree of impairment. In other words, to enforce the law, the law must be based on something fairly objective and harder to contest (like BAC) rather than something hard to measure objectively (impairment of driving judgement and skill). I think the writer has the right concept but expressed it wrongly.

3 Old version Despite this, some drivers believe their driving actually improves with small amounts of alcohol. This assertion is completely false: their perception of their driving improves because they are more relaxed, but their actual motor competence is markedly lower than when sober.

I changed it because it is again literally false. The perception of his own driving skill deteriorates in accuracy and quality, not improves (in other words the gap between the reality of his skills and his perception of his skills increases). Again, right concept expressed awkwardly.

alteripse 29 apr 04

Whoops. Sorry. I meant to say, with that bit (#3), that their perceived level of competence at driving improves; their actual skills of perception decline, as you said. Mike Church 19:54, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit]  % or mg/ml?

Our article says that BAC is measured as a percentage by volume, but all the sources I can find on the Web, e.g. this one and this one, say it's measured in milligrams per millilitre (mg/ml) or per hundred millilitres (mg/100ml). However, there are many other writers out there who state BAC as a percentage without saying what it's a percentage of. This distinction matters: since the relative density of ethanol is 0.789 (Wikipedia) and that of blood is about 1.06 (MSN Encarta), the %-by-volume definition is about one-third drunker than the mg/ml definition.

Who thinks I should change the article, and who thinks that it's right as it stands? --Heron 16:32, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure how to answer, but despite the fact that ml is not a weight measure, like mg, that's how the California code is written, at least: "(b) It is unlawful for any person who has 0.08 percent or more, by weight, of alcohol in his or her blood to drive a vehicle. For purposes of this article and Section 34501.16, percent, by weight, of alcohol in a person's blood is based upon grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood or grams of alcohol per 210 liters of breath."[2]. Seems kinda goofy to calculate based on different types of measures, but I guess it's not really a percentage (at least not "by weight"), despite what they say. I wonder if the discrepancy could be used to challenge a conviction. Niteowlneils 01:40, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] POV?

Re: "Despite the liberal intoxication limits of many countries, one should not assume that driving with a BAC rating of, say, .079 is as safe as driving while sober. At a BAC rating of 0.05, the probability of a driver having an accident is more than four times its base level. Despite this, some drivers believe their driving actually improves with small amounts of alcohol. This assertion is false, because their ability to accurately judge the quality of their driving (measured by actual motor competence) deteriorates."

This seems somewhat POV to me, at least in tone. It sounds like someone from MADD wrote this, especially the italicized "four times." I think it should be tweaked or at least footnoted with some solid sources.

Def should be, seems to be a POV agaisnt alcohol. --68.45.219.63 (talk) 09:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clear Up a Little Confusion

In the table that lists the number of alcoholic beverages and its affects, what unit of time would that go under? Within a day? Within an hour? I mean, five drinks in a stretched amount of time doesn't have the same affect is it does within a shorter time period.

I agree, the table says:

12 Drinks=.30-.40% BAC=Loss of consciousness

I'd like to see good solid evidence of this, a BAC of .3 to .4 can cause a loss of consciousness, but only 12 drinks to get there is a little extreme. I'm 6' and weigh 272lb, 250lb when training. During a Sunday football game, I used to consume about a 12-pack, since their is usually a double header, I might end up drinking 24 beers. If what the chart says is correct, then by the end of the first game, I should have had a BAC of .30 and be out. The highest my BAC ever has been was .45, after drinking an entire bottle of Jack Daniels. As a recovering alcoholic, I have a little experience here. Maybe there should be a time on the chart as well. -cplradar


I think it'd better to have an expanded table between the typical BAC and its affects; I found this site that describes several levels and a fairly detailed explainations [3]

My360pi 22:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Greece BAC

There is conflicting info on the BAC in Greece.

The ICAP report I have linked to below says the legal BAC to drive in Greece is 0.5mg/ml, which is 0.05% (w/w)

[edit] including units

As discussed in this page, there are several units for BAC. Could we please either tidy up the usage of units through the article, or better, fully state the units at every usage. For instance. The section "Effect at different levels" gives no units other that "%". Although the units section does say that just "%" on its own means % w/w, g/100g isn't the only one measured in %, and since the difference between the % units is a power of 10, it can be quite confusing. It also standard that if you use a %, you state whether you mean w/w, w/v, or v/v.

If nothing else, can we change it from saying something like "0.50%" in every row to "0.5" in the row and adding "% (g/100g)" or "% w/w" to the column header cell.

Personally, I think that since ICAP uses mg/ml as a standard unit, that should be the unit used whenever possible through the article. Here's an example ICAP report. The units through it are mg/ml as seen in the table of BAC's legal to drive in different countries. http://www.icap.org/portals/0/download/all_pdfs/ICAP_Reports_English/report11.pdf --KX36 12:01, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Germany has two limits!?

Quote:

  • Countries with a 0.08% limit include Mexico, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Germany, the United States[1] and Canada[2]. For further information on US laws, see Alcohol laws of the United States by state.
  • Countries with a 0.05% limit include Argentina, Australia[3], Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Kosovo, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey.

This must be wrong! Who knows the right limit? 86.56.0.159 12:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Limits for US bus drivers

  • Countries with a 0.08% limit include Republic of Ireland, the United States[1] and Canada.[2] In the United States, operators of common carriers, such as buses, are restricted to a 0.10% limit, and the Federal Aviation Regulations governing U.S. pilots prohibit operation of an aircraft within eight hours of consumption or while having as little as 0.04 percent of alcohol by weight in the blood.[3] For further information on US laws, see Alcohol laws of the United States by state.

So bus operators are allowed more alcohol than private drivers?? Mtford 22:11, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] UK limit

I have moved the UK back into the 0.08% bracket from 0.05%. I also added Malta and Luxembourgh. I don't know why the UK was moved to 0.05%. (Ajkgordon 10:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC))

[edit] France limit

Interesting one. The limit is 0.08% for an outright ban but there are punishments for 0.05% to 0.08% also, i.e. six points and a fine. I'll see if I can add some text with an English reference. (Ajkgordon 10:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC))

[edit] information on actual meaning of BAC and intoxication

I came to wikipedia looking to see if BAC is precisely correlated with intoxication level; i.e., that if someone's BAC is higher than it should be due to taking a drug that slows ingestion as mentioned in the article, resulting in a higher BAC, has the drug actually caused greater intoxication (impairment of motor skills, etc.)? Or has the drug simply elevated the BAC but the person is no more affected by the alcohol than if he had not taken the medication?

Some info would help clarify. 71.162.92.26 02:59, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weight vs. Blood Volume

What theoretical or experimental evidence is there for the generally accepted belief that blood alcohol concentration is inversely proportional to weight (W)? Why isn't blood alcohol concentration inversely proportional to blood volume (V)? That's not equivalent, because experimental evidence shows that V is proportional to W2/3 (Dreyer & Ray, "The Blood Volume of Mammals as Determined by Experiments upon Rabbits, Guinea-Pigs, and Mice, and Its Relationship to the Body Weight and to the Surface Area Expressed in a Formula", Proc. Royal Society of London, pp. 82:558(545-546), 1910).

[edit] Table contains gaps

Perhaps it might be useful to fill in the gaps that exist in the table--there's some interesting ground between 0.03 and 0.10, including the US legal limit.

[edit] Merge proposal

Red Zone (Intoxication) appears to be a subtopic of this article and should either be merged into this article or deleted as non-notable and original research. ✤ JonHarder talk 17:39, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Discuss:

  • There appears to be no interest to merge. I have prodded the other article. We'll see what happens. ✤ JonHarder talk 17:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is this actually correct?

I must have been eight times the drink drive limit on many occasions, and if anything my judgement was improved! Certainly not dead or unconcious. 81.149.250.228 11:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "The following formula..."

How is this in any way remotely helpful?

1 g/kg = 1 g kg-1 = 1 g/L = 100mg/dL = 1 mg/cc = 100 mg% = 1 decigrams% = 0.1 g% = 0.1% = 1 ‰

Something like this needs elaboration, it can't just be stuck into an article by itself and expected to be understood by the general readership. DMCer (talk) 11:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First paragraph

The first paragraph says that BAC is usually measured as mass / volume. However the example given says .02 grams (a unit of mass) over 100 grams (another unit of mass). Which one is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.61.77.68 (talk) 12:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Table of effects, OK below 0.03%

Given that FAA rules allow commercial airline pilots to fly at up to 0.039%, this article’s table should be revised. I see that it is based on Virginia Tech data, but to say that a BAC of 0.01% causes impairments is ludicrous and comes across as just another example of the mentality that brought about Reefer Madness. Wikipedia’s table should incorporate data from other sources. I suggest a good starting place is the FAA’s take on on the subject (Federal Aviation Regulation (CFR) 91.17, Table 2, here). The FAA’s binned values overlap, but by interpolating, it effectivly states that at BAC values of <0.03%, the “average individual appears normal” and does not suffer from impaired judgement or other ill effects. No legitimate case can be made here for simply parroting data from a single source if that data flies in the face of common sense (like impairment at 0.01%). That’s horse crap. Cautions to young people on the effects of alchohol must be factual to be credible. Greg L (my talk) 04:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE: Having not received a response to this, I took the liberty of bifurcating the low-end binned value of 0.01–0.06 into two ranges: 0.01–0.029, and 0.03–0.059. Further, I described the effects of the lowest binned range per Federal Aviation Regulation (CFR) 91.17, Table 2. Lumping the effects of 0.01 or 0.02 into the same impairment as 0.06 was no good at all. Really, the Virginia Tech data is a for-student Web site to caution young adults about the hazards of drinking; it is hardly an authortative, scientific source on alcohol’s effect on the human central nervous system. If I cared more about this issue and hard more time, I'd find an NIH site or something similar. Simply bifurcating “0.01–0.06” will do for the moment. Greg L (my talk) 03:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Per Volume

"It is usually measured as mass per volume. For example, a BAC of 0.02% means 0.2 ‰ (permille) or 0.02 grams of alcohol per 100 grams of individual's blood, or 0.2 grams of alcohol per 1000 grams of blood." (first paragraph)

This is a bad example because the gram ("per 100 grams") is a unit of mass, not a unit of volume. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.175.215.29 (talk) 20:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Carbonated reference?

The article states: "Alcohol in non-carbonated beverages is absorbed more slowly than alcohol in carbonated drinks." Is there any evidence for this and an explanation of the body physiology as to why that is the case? 194.46.229.87 (talk) 11:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Table for legal limits of BAC

The table containing different countries' legal BAC limits is a bit confusing. Do the "general" lines not specifying a specific country belong to the country that is listed above them? Since they are not general rules applying to all countries I would guess so, but the table could be made clearer. An example of this would be the line "• learner drivers and provisional/probationary drivers". I am suggesting to maybe remove the dividing line between these items, to show that they belong together. 83.255.186.163 (talk) 16:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)