Drink Driving & Sleeping While Inebriated in Your Vehicle

We all know that drink driving is illegal when over the limit.  When training though we often get asked questions because people are not clear on some of the laws.

In England and Wales the limit for drivers is 35 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath, and 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, 35 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath or 107 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of urine.

In most European Countries and in Scotland the limits are lower though, normally 50 milligrammes of alcohol in every 100 millilitres of blood. The breath alcohol equivalent reduced to 22 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath.

But if you’ve got nowhere else to stay, you might consider sleeping in the car instead, at least until you’ve sobered up.  However, should you do this?

In doing so, you could leave yourself open to a drunk in charge fine.

This is because the law states that those in charge of a motor vehicle should not be inebriated.

This is not overly specific and while you could argue that being asleep means you are not necessarily ‘in charge’ of the vehicle, the police can (and historically have) used this as an excuse to charge people with a driving offence.

Also, 1 in 5 drink drive accidents happen in the morning so it is important to remember that you can still be over the limit in the morning.  This video is a great advert to explain.

Make sure you know the law to stay on the right side of it and protect your driving licence.