Drink Driving

Drinking alcohol has become an Australian way of life, but unfortunately drink driving dramatically increases your chances of being involved in a fatal motor vehicle accident.

 

The statistics show that if you have a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10 you are 7 times more likely to be involved in a fatal motor vehicle accident than a sober driver, and if you blood alcohol concentration is 0.15, the likelihood increases to 25 times.

 

The general rule of thumb to remain below the 0.05 blood alcohol concentration limit is:

 

For men:          2 standard drinks in the first hour, and 1 standard drink each hour thereafter.

For women:     1 standard drink each hour.

 

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that after you sleep following a evening drinking alcohol, the next morning you are ‘okay to drive’. However, your liver can process about one standard drink each hour.  Therefore, after a big night out on the town it is quite possible for you to still be over your legal limit the next morning.

 

The amount of food that you have eaten, the number of soft drinks that you have consumed or medication hat you have taken, might change how the alcohol affects you but it does not change your blood alcohol concentration reading. Therefore it is important to keep in mind the rule of thumb, but at the same time remember that it is not a guarantee that you will remain under the legal limit.

 

The safest policy is not to drive if you plan to drink, and not to drink if are driving.  This is good advice but it is too late for you if you have been charged with drive with a prescribed concentration of alcohol.

 

 

A Blood Alcohol Concentration is a measure of the amount of alcohol you have in your blood. The measurement is the number of grams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood. 

 

NSW has three blood alcohol concentration limits:  zero, 0.02 and 0.05, depending on the category of your licence and the type of vehicle you are driving.

 

Zero applies to:

0.02 applies to:

The penalties (for a first offence) 

 

Once the police have pulled you over for a random breath test, the police can require that you submit to a breath test.  Where the roadside breath test returns a positive reading, you will be arrested and conveyed to the local police station for the breath analysis.  The breath analysis at the Police Station will provide the Certificate upon which the police prosecutor proves the change against you.  Your blood alcohol concentration at the time of the offence is deemed to be determined by the breath analysis Certificate if the analysis was made within 2 hours of the event. The breath analysis must have been taken within 2 hours of the act of driving.  Where the Certificate is obtained outside of the 2 hour window, the Courts have held that although the Certificate could be admitted, the Prosecution could not rely upon the deeming provisions, and unless there is other expert evidence as to the likely reading at the relevant time, the Certificate should be rejected by the Court.

 

If you have been charged with drink driving, and the breath analysis certificate is valid, there may be the possibility that at the time you were driving you were not over the legal limit. Where this is an issue, we can arrange to obtain a pharmacologist’s report from a Professor as expert evidence that you were not over the limit at the time of the offence, and it can be possible to negotiate a withdrawal of the charge.

 

Where there are no defences available to you, and you enter a plea of guilty, it is important that your case be put to the Court best as possible. Your solicitor can make submissions on your behalf on all objective and subjective factors which would show that it is appropriate to reduce the automatic penalties to ensure a just and fair result.

 

Even where the Court finds that you are guilty of the offence, the Court has discretion to dismiss the charge or discharge you from the offence upon you entering into a good behaviour bond.  If the Court grants you a section 10, there will be no conviction recorded and you will not be disqualified from driving. In considering whether or not to apply a ‘section 10’ the Court will consider factors such as your character, age and history, extenuating circumstances and the hardship that you will suffer if you were to be disqualified from driving.