We all know what can happen to drunken scooter riders. [link removed by mod, as there exists no public evidence of drunk driving on that individual’s part, and the implication of such (which implication is made by the very nature of following “We all know what can happen to drunken scooter riders”) is considered not only potentially libelous but also certainly inflammatory and not necessary to the topic at hand – DB]
Not saying the above guy was or was not drunk, but in a drunk motorbike accident that’s what you can expect.
As for drunk car drivers, my wife told me last night about a former manager where she used to work. Apparently he got totally plastered last weekend, hopped in his BMW, drove 14 km the wrong way down the highway until he finally hit another car, killing the driver. Her former colleague is in the hospital, but his drivers license has been taken away for life (he’s local) and he is now facing criminal murder charges (as he should be). The legal limit for blood alcohol when driving in Taiwan is .25% but this guy’s level was at 1.24%, almost 5 times the limit. (I couldn’t find any English news articles on the guy, but he was the Apple gory cover story on Sunday and my wife was reading Chinese accounts of his wreck online).
What kind of an idiot gets totally shitfaced to 5 times the legal limit and hops in a car to drive home? Lots of idiots, I suspect. It’s especially stupid considering how many taxis there are here.
I confess, I’ve driven drunk in the past – many years ago in the US. But I believe I’ve outgrown that (no risk now as I don’t own a motor vehicle). In fact, I believe the drunk driving rate has greatly decreased in the US, due to serious enforcement as well as the public recognition of how stupid it is. And I suspect there’s a higher rate of drunk driving here due to more of a wild frontier yeehaa mentality, among locals and foreigners.
Anyway, that’s all. My wife told me that story last night and I just wanted to share it. One dead victim (and grieving family), and one banged up idiot who will go to jail when he gets out of the hospital and will lose his license for life.
I am still waiting for the one person who can pop up some statistics about drunk driving in TW vs.other countries.
There won’t be. Simply because it is a fucking joke those Alcohol controles on the road. They even do not use measurement tools.
Like a sniff in the car will tell how much the guy drunk? Bullocks.
They’ve pulled me over at random 4-5 times and breathalyzed me twice, so at least some of the time they are using measurement devices.
I’m guessing that the look and sniff are for a quick screening of obvious signs. Locals usually turn beet red if they drink, so I’m assuming they’ll breathalyze anyone who looks reddish or smells of drink.
I’m sure they could (and should) do much more than they currently are, don’t get me wrong. Just pointing out that they do use some tools, and there is some rationale for the quick look and sniff method as a practical way to quickly screen a larger number of vehicles at a roadblock, with the breathalyzer then applied more selectively.
Dragonbones wrote: [quote]They’ve pulled me over at random 4-5 times and breathalyzed me twice, so at least some of the time they are using measurement devices. Beats me… [/quote]
Random my big hairy arse! You obviously look like a drunkard! I, on the other hand, have never been pulled over.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”].25% ? Is that what it is here? It used to be .10 in the USA - now most states have lowered it to .08.
WOW! If “Achung” (mythical Taiwan person) is blowin’ that high there is little room for argument.
Thats sloppy drunk.[/quote]
I agree. I can’t read Chinese, but my wife showed me the article she was reading about this guy online and I did see the figures .25% and 1.24% in the midst of the Chinese text and she explained to me one was the legal limit and the other was his blood alcohol. Maybe someone else can find more on it, or I’ll see if I can get my wife to send me a link.
But you’d have to be sloppy drunk to get on the onramp going the wrong way and drive 14km without figuring it out.
EDIT: Ok, it’s .25 but that’s not %. Apparently the legal limit here is “25mg per liter” (and it’s only been a criminal violation since 1999). I don’t know what that works out to in %. Also, the number of people killed in Taiwan by drunk driving almost doubled from 434 in 2004 to 828 in 2005. taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003297425
And, while I was wrong in stating the numbers as %, it’s still true that this guy was 5 times over the legal limit.
You’re a scientist, more or less, BFM.
Can you do the rithmatic to figure if the info on your chart really is correct. The legal limit in Taiwan is apparently 25mg per liter. What does that work out to in %?
Can’t help you with the rithmatic, MT, (never been good at figurin’ them numbers) but here’s another source on international blood alcohol concentration limits.
It says Taiwan’s limit is .05, so almost twice as strict as the US limit.
AFAIK, the legal limit is supposed to be 0.05%, and that is 50 mg per 100 ml. (1% = 1 g / 100 ml) For an average Western adult male of about 75 kg, that’s one standard drink per hour, after two in the first hour, roughly. A can of 4.5% beer has about one and a half standard drinks. A large glass of wine has two standard drinks.
This place here is meant to be the definitive site on the matter for Taiwan, but it’s full of errors. “The legal limit is 0.25 mg/litre for breath alcohol level tests, approximately 0.05% Blood Alcohol Concentration” is bullshit, as that value of 0.25mg/litre works out to be 0.025 mg per 100 mL, which is 0.025% BAC, not 0.05, for a start…
MT’s above-quoted 25 mg per litre would be only 0.0025%, far and away the lowest driving BAC in the world (apart from some places that say 0%). Has this change been made recently? That would basically make driving after any kind of drinking illegal here. But it makes sense when many Taiwanese people, women especially, go gagga after two spoonsful of wine. In reality though, it is not alcohol that is at fault for most bad driving here… just selfish stupidity.
The figures quoted in the first article are wrong (by a factor of ten). Somebody with a BAC of 0.25% has just consumed ten beers. Somebody with a BAC of 1.24% is dead. Seriously, totally, absolutely dead. Absolut!
I corrected myself after that first post. Apparently his BAC was 1.24mg/liter, which is almost five times the legal limit in Taiwan. But, that’s only based on what I read, some of it in English, some in Chinese (which I can’t understand anyway), and one can’t always believe what one reads.
In any event, the guy apparently was so drunk he drove 14km the wrong way down the highway and killed a guy and is now facing murder charges and a permanent loss of his license. That’s the important part. I’ll see if I can get a link.
I remember hearing of a taxi diver in Sydney, still working, mind you, being stopped and breath tested at about that amount (0.122 or something). fekkin Reddikulous.
BAc calculations are damned tricky, all those pesky decimal places and % conversions to deal with…
Whenever I think about the statutory blood alcohol limits in various countries (as I posted above, I think that the US has .08 and Taiwan .05), I am reminded of an experience of a friend of mine when he joined the district attorney’s office (local criminal prosecutors) in Philadelphia.
Because a number of the new assistant DAs would be prosecuting DUI (drink driving) offenses, the DA’s Office had a training workshop with the local police to give the the new ADAs an idea of what they were dealing with. My friend told me that part of the idea was to show the new prosecutors that they weren’t “splitting hairs” or being unduly harsh when they prosecuted people who had just barely failed a breathalyzer test.
What they did was take a volunteer from the new class of assistant DAs and gave him a series of tequila shots. I guess they picked a big guy who looked like he could handle his liquor, although that really doesn’t matter since blood-alcohol already takes into account how big you are. Anyway, after each shot, they tested his blood-alcohol, and had him do a few exercises (say the alphabet backwards, stand on one foot, that type of thing).
I don’t remember the details of how visibly sloshed this guy became after each tequila shot, and with each new blood-alcohol reading, but I remember that my friend told me that the bottom line was that this guy was clearly seriously impaired well below the .08 limit. My friend (who was a rugby player who knew his way around a beer or 10 in college) said that everyone in the group agreed that they would not want this guy driving a car that they or one of their family members was riding in even when the guy was at .06 or .07 blood-alcohol level.
Guys, just to bring you up to date, the limit was reduced from 0.25 to 0.15 on either 1st April or 1st May, so now you need to be even more careful. This news was published but in chinese only.
People should be more than careful. They should be responsible.
I think there are a lot of hypocritcal feelings about this subject for many people, as some may feel guilty for having a beer or two on the way home, or on the way to the beach, etc. I know I have. The last time I drank and drove was in kending last summer, no, now two summers ago. Whiskey coke and a scooter cruising up and down the road watching the surfers, no helmet. I AM ashamed to admit it and now get to open myself up to all sorts of judgement, which is probably why many people don’t participate in threads like this.
It was wrong and it was stupid. Dangerous? That IS the tough question. It didn’t seem dangerous to me at the time. It seemed fun. Most of all, it was irresponsible. I bet my family that day. I bet my son growing up without me and I bet my wife raising him alone. I bet I would live. I bet I wouldn’t kill someone else.
I won, but I’ll never wager them or myself or strangers again in that way. What is there to win except another chance to play?
Fuck that.
I quit drinking alcohol over a year ago, and it was hard. One would assume that it would be easier to quit driving while drinking/drunk. The costs, if you lose, are enormous. Ironically, usually the costs are not even felt by the one who placed the bet.
I’ve been in 6 auto accidents, 2 of which were caused by my own stupidity. Fortunately, the time another person was injured (not seriously) I was not at fault. I can’t imagine the regret I would feel if that were the case. And I never drink. I’m stupid enough on my own.
Ouch. I didn’t intend for this thread to turn divisive. Back on track.
Here’s Princess Diana.
Here’s her car after her drunk driver killed her.
Regardless of how you felt about her, that’s a pretty crappy way to go.
And in response to the prior question why a thread condemning drunk driving would include live people as examples, and not just dead people, here you go. . .