Drinking tonight? Will you be safe to drive tomorrow?
Research suggests that approximately 20% of people detected over the drink-drive limit are caught the morning after having a drink – between 6am and noon. This number has risen significantly in the last decade to approximately 5,500 people each year.
From April 2022 to March 2023 there were 385 drink-driving arrests in Buckinghamshire Council’s area. This is why the message from the council’s road safety initiative Travel Safe Bucks is: If you’ve been drinking the night before, remember you could still have alcohol in your system the following day; so if you have to go to work, appointments or make the school run, then plan ahead and don’t drive the morning after.
On average, it takes one hour for alcohol to be absorbed into the bloodstream fully, and then one hour per unit consumed for alcohol to leave the body. So, eight units of alcohol (approximately three large glasses of wine) takes around nine hours to leave the body.
There is no way to know how much a person can drink and stay under the limit, since it can depend on weight, age, metabolism, the amount of food they've eaten and other factors.
It doesn’t matter if you eat carb-based foods, drink two litres of water or have a cold shower, the alcohol still takes the same amount of time to leave the body.
Buckinghamshire Council’s Cabinet Member for Transport Steven Broadbent said:
“We want people to enjoy themselves this summer but also to educate themselves and understand the risks so they don’t make the mistake of driving when still over the limit. The greatest risk if you drive under the influence of alcohol (or drugs) is that you’ll cause a collision, as your ability to judge speed and distance, your reactions, your coordination, your vision and your behaviour are all negatively affected.
“We’re not saying, ‘don’t drink’, but we are saying ‘don’t drink anything if you are driving’ and ‘don’t drink heavily if you have to drive the following morning’.”
Visit our drink and drug driving page to find useful information and tools including:
- the Morning After Calculator to see approximately when the alcohol you’ve drunk will be out of your system
- how many units of alcohol are in popular drinks
- the effect on reactions even before you’re over the limit
- penalties and the impact of being caught drink/drug driving
- the effects of drugs including prescribed medicines
To find out more, follow @travelsafebucks on Facebook and Twitter (X).