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In the US you can still get a DUI even when cycling drunk. Safer than driving drunk, sure, but not safer for you legally.
by nkrisc 5y ago
In the US you can still get a DUI even when cycling drunk. Safer than driving drunk, sure, but not safer for you legally.
- usrusr 5y agoGermany has a surprisingly reasonable compromise: you can get a DUI, lose your driver's license and all that, but the threshold for BAC is set twice as high for cycling as it is for driving. Actually these days the limit is more than three times that of driving, because apparently when they dropped the driving threshold from 0.8 to 0.5 the cycling threshold did not get automatically updated like in some excel formula. Fortunately, because I was afraid that the difference might disappear entirely when the driving threshold gets dropped to zero (only a matter of time I think, given how much drunk driving is perceived as a "boomer thing"). When I'm out on the bike, not drunk at all, I'd rather cross paths with a hundred wildly inebriated cyclists than even just one moderately tipsy driver.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoHmm, this would not have saved me back in my partying days. I'm sure I would have been many times over the threshold :P
- usrusr 5y agoThe good news is that cycling is apparently much easier than walking (don't ask me how I know!), so they'd likely underestimate your BAC if you're beyond trying funny stuff.
- greyface- 5y agoThis varies by jurisdiction. In Washington State, cycling drunk is legal.
- nkrisc 5y agoTrue. I said "in the US" which is almost never going to be a completely accurate statement for anything that follows.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoIn Holland you technically can too, but the cops don't arrest you for it anyway. So many times we waved bye to the cops on the main square when stumbling out of the pub at 4am and swerving off on the bike. And all they would do is wish us a safe trip home. It's just the 'done thing' over there. At least it was when I was at the partying age.