If you think one drink before driving off wouldn’t be enough to get you involved in an accident or arrested and prosecuted for driving under the influence, then you are terribly wrong.
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) says one standard drink could be one 12-ounce beer, one 1.5-ounce shot of liquor, or one five-ounce glass of wine. All three contain half an ounce of alcohol each. It may not be much, but it’s enough to make you at risk for an accident and prosecution, for which you’re going to need a DUI lawyer.
A safe level of alcohol while driving doesn’t exist.
In all states except for Utah, the blood alcohol concentration or BAC limit is 0.08. Two standard drinks will get a 120-pound woman there, while it will take four standard drinks for a 180-pound man to reach the legal limit.
One drink, therefore, won’t lead to a breach of that limit, which is probably why most people who drive after imbibing alcohol think they won’t cause an accident or get arrested for a DUI. That half-ounce of alcohol, however, is still going to affect your body and your driving.
Your BAC may reach 0.02 after one drink. That figure is still far from the legal limit, but some tests show that drivers with such BAC levels already experience a decline in visual acuity, their ability to track other moving objects, and their multi-tasking capacity. All three facilities are crucial to driving, and any reduction in them makes a driver more likely to commit mistakes that could end up in a mishap or a DUI arrest.
Breathalyzers aren’t perfect.
The breathalyzer has been one of the trustiest tools the police have in their arsenal when making a DUI stop. It has proven to be quite reliable for determining a driver’s BAC and has been instrumental in the arrest of countless drunk drivers over the years.
Drivers who had only one drink, however, could be thrown for a loop once a cop’s breathalyzer checks their BAC and finds them over the legal limit.
You see, a breathalyzer is designed to read deep breath lung samples. If it can pick up traces of alcohol from that deep, then it can easily detect alcohol residue in your mouth, which you will likely have if you had that one drink just a few minutes before getting behind the wheel.
In all likelihood, the breathalyzer will yield a high reading of your BAC level at the time of the DUI stop, and you will end up getting arrested for driving under the influence.
Sure, you and your DUI attorney may be able to prove in court that the reading was inaccurate. The charges against you could be dropped, or you could secure an acquittal. Still, you will have to go through the entire DUI prosecution process, which is an inconvenience you could have avoided if only you didn’t have that one drink.
One drink can still get you in trouble, so avoid consuming any amount of alcohol if you plan to do any driving.
