Two Drinks at a Friend's House
You are 21 and hold a full Bahamian driver's licence. You spend Saturday evening at a friend's house and have two bottles of beer between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., with a meal. At 11 p.m. you feel alert, your speech is normal, and you believe you are fine to drive home, a 20-minute trip. A friend says you should wait. You have an early shift the next morning and want to get home. You have not eaten since the meal at 9 p.m. and you are slightly tired. You have never been stopped by police before and you think the risk of being caught is low.
1. Evaluate your fitness to drive, using what is known about alcohol and the body.
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Feeling alert is not a reliable test of being under the limit. Alcohol affects judgement, reaction time, coordination and the ability to divide attention, and those effects begin before a person feels impaired. The amount in the blood depends on how much was drunk, body weight, food, and time, but only time removes it; coffee, food, fresh air and a shower do not speed it up. Two beers in two hours, then a further hour, may put some people near or over a legal limit, and you cannot know your own figure without a test. Tiredness makes it worse, because fatigue and alcohol compound each other. The safe and lawful choice is not to drive. Wait longer, call someone, take a taxi, or stay the night.
2. Your friend offers to drive you home instead. What should you check before accepting?
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Accepting a lift is a good decision only if the driver is fit. Ask whether your friend has been drinking, how much, and when they last drank. If the answer is anything other than none, decline and arrange a taxi or stay over. Do not get into a car with a driver who has been drinking, even for a short trip, because you would be putting your safety in the hands of someone whose judgement is affected. If no sober driver is available, the remaining options are to wait, walk if it is safe and practical, or stay the night.
3. The next morning you feel normal. Does that mean you can drive at 7 a.m.?
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Not automatically. Alcohol can still be present in the body the morning after drinking, and a normal feeling does not prove you are under the limit. If you drank late, heavily, or did not sleep well, your ability to drive may still be affected. The prudent course is to allow enough time, eat and hydrate, and if there is any doubt, use another means of transport. The law does not exempt morning drivers, and impairment is impairment whatever the clock says.