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Sunday. The past few of days, I wrote about how much I struggle with the driving rules and how much I dislike driving. I also posted several pictures of my wine rack and my alcohol collection. Right now I feel I need to write a post showing that behind the bottle, there is someone who’s actually very conscious (and that’s me, if you wonder). So today I’ll talk more about drinking and driving. But this time, it’ll be in an educative way.

The Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) is the measurement used to determine alcoholic intoxication. It’s usually expressed as a percentage and it represents the mass of alcohol per mass of blood.

I’m not sure if many of you are aware, but depending on the country, that percentage varies. So if you come from the US or England to Germany and drink as much as you are used to, chances are that if the police stops you, you end up in (big) trouble.

Please click on the map to zoom in.

Now, take a look at these two graphics

According to the graphics above, I would think that after drinking 2 bottles of beers (0,02%) and one tequila shot (that could be counted as 1 bottle of beer 0,01%), I’d have a total BAC of 0,03%, so I’d be perfectly fit for driving because in Germany you can drive with a BAC below 0,05%.
But from my personal experience, there is NO WAY I could drive after having two bottles of beer and one shot of tequila.
Three sips of beer make me tipsy (full smile). After the first bottle, I could answer any question asked to me (dark secrets included). After two bottles and one shot of tequila, you’ll see me dancing on the bar (0 inhibitions).
Remember the movie “Coyote Ugly”?

You are guessing correctly, alcohol effects vary between people and depend on several factors. For example:
-Gender
-Age
-Weight
-Fatigue
-Medication
-Whether you’ve eaten recently
-Type of alcohol you drink

Probably you don’t notice but even small amounts of alcohol affect your ability to drive safely, reduce your coordination, slow down your reactions, affect your vision, affect how you judge speed and distance and make you drowsy. It can also make you more likely to take risks, which can create dangerous situations for you and other people.

All this, leads me to the Bob Campaign.

The Bob campaign was originated in Belgium in 1995 in collaboration between several governmental departments, the police and the Belgian beer brewing industry.
I lived in The Netherlands for several years and I was told that Bob was the acronym of “Bewust Onbeschonken Bestuurder” which translates to “Consciously Non-Drunk Driver” or ‘deliberately sober driver’. But now Wikipedia is telling me that Bob is just a name chosen by the Belgian government.
Anyway, who’s Bob? Bob is no other than the Designated Driver!

The idea of this campaign was to choose Bob before going out. So you could see on TV and in several signs and leaflets all over, a slogan saying: “Bob jij of Bob ik?” (“Bob You or Bob me?”).
A few years later, the campaign was updated and the slogan was: “Bob houdt de nul” (“Bob stays at zero”).
Right now, the campaign’s slogan is “100% Bob 0% op” (100% Bob 0% in (the body)).
The idea is that the designated-driver shouldn’t drink anything at all because once started, it becomes increasingly difficult to say “no”.

I don’t think it’s possible to know for certain if you are or aren’t able to drive after drinking.
Even if you blow on a breathalyzer and the machine says you can drive, there is this part that wasn’t taken in consideration, and that is how the alcohol had actually affected you.

So, if you were drinking, don’t drive… That’s always better than discovering too late than driving wasn’t such a good idea.

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sources:
http://wikipedia.org
http://www.daarkunjemeethuiskomen.nl/bob/
http://alcoholcontrols.com/lebaclibyst.html#.VTuM_FmZG2w
http://gsri.worldwidebrewingalliance.org/php/initiatives/initiative.php?ini_id=439
http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2096.aspx?CategoryID=87&SubCategoryID=871

~ by DotedOn on April 26, 2015.