Alcohol, drugs, medication, fatigue and fitness to ride
This domain tests your judgement about your own condition. The legal rules are simple; the exam questions are about the morning after, about prescription medicines, and about the fact that a motorcycle forgives far less than a car.
Alcohol
Denmark's limit is 0.5 g/L blood alcohol (0.5 per mille) for all motor vehicles, motorcycles included. Your personal limit is lower than the legal one, because judgement, balance and risk perception go before the number does. Alcohol is eliminated at roughly 0.1–0.15 per mille per hour, and only time does it. Coffee, food and a cold shower do not. A heavy night can leave you over the limit the next morning.
Drugs and medicine
Illegal drugs meet zero tolerance: driving while influenced by them is an offence whatever the quantity, and police can test saliva at the roadside. Prescription and over-the-counter medicines matter too. In Denmark, medicines that affect driving carry a warning triangle on the packet: a red triangle means you must not drive, a yellow triangle means drive only with caution after checking with your doctor or pharmacist. Effects combine badly - alcohol with medicine, or medicine with fatigue.
Fatigue
- Warning signs: yawning, heavy eyes, drifting in the lane, missing signs, a wandering mind.
- A short sleep of 15–20 minutes plus caffeine is the only reliable countermeasure; a stretch and fresh air are not enough.
- Build in a stop at least every two hours on a long ride.
- The small hours, the end of a long day and the period after a heavy meal are the danger points.
Fitness to ride
Fever, flu, strong painkillers, migraine, an eye infection, vertigo - all cut the margin a motorcycle gives you, which is none. Cold impairs too: shivering hands are slow hands. If you are unwell, the correct answer on the test and on the road is not to ride.
Worked example
A rider has two beers with lunch at 13:00 and plans to ride home at 22:00. He feels entirely normal. Two drinks might put him near the legal limit shortly after drinking, and nine hours should be enough for his body to clear it. But the reasoning the exam wants is not so I am fine: it is that feeling normal proves nothing, that late-night fatigue on top of any residual alcohol is dangerous, and that a rider who has been drinking should have a plan that does not involve the bike.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating the legal limit as a safety threshold.
- Believing coffee or food speeds up elimination.
- Assuming a prescription medicine is safe because it is legal.
- Riding home in the small hours on the strength of feeling awake.