WaPo Article–Don’t Drink and Bike

@Emm 158514 wrote:

“Don’t drink and walk — or bike”

The stat within the article which caught my attention was this one:
“On Wednesday, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) reported that, despite progress in recent decades, more than one-third of the pedestrians and one-fifth of bicyclists who were killed in crashes in 2014 were legally drunk.“

Not sure how accurate it is since I’m not familiar with the data, but it’s a higher level than I would have expected.

Not too surprising when you consider the sudden attractiveness of a bike as a non-incarceration-inducing transportation alternative after suspension or revocation of a driver’s license for DUI.

After a show at Rock and Roll Hotel or Atlas on H St, I usually end up at a certain bus stop waiting for the bus to Gallery Place. That bus stop is next to a particular bar. Half the time, some drunk walks out of the bar and tries to talk to me or whatever.

On one particular night, a guy walked out of the bar and unlocked his bike. He appeared to be reasonably sober, until we made eye contact. He wasn’t sober at all. He mounted his bike and promptly rode in front of an oncoming car. Luckily for him, the car had working brakes.

@DismalScientist 158550 wrote:

Considering that I am likely legally drunk 25% of the time, if I were killed on my bike at a random time, this sort of analysis would suggest a relationship between insobriety and death that clearly does not exist at all.

Or possibly 25% legally drunk 100% of the time.

@cvcalhoun 158557 wrote:

You can get a DUI for drunk bicycling. Then presumably they take away your driver’s license, forcing you to bike more.

I suppose the judge could order a cyclist not to ride while legally intoxicated, and hold them in contempt of court if they did. The judge could order that a breathalyzer lock-out be attached to their Garmin.

Doesn’t Strava Premium have a field for BAC?

@Sunyata 158569 wrote:

Not in Virginia. In VA, you can be arrested for being drunk in public, but not for a DUI.

One of those rare cases when the VA law is the one that’s obviously sensible, and the corresponding DC law is the one that’s insane.

I am actually surprised it’s not higher – the cyclist percentage of fatalities who were legally drunk is significantly lower than both pedestrains and drivers (21% vs. 35% and 32% respectively).

Biking, to a much greater degree than driving, requires motor skills (a little irony there I just noticed), and particularly balance. I would guess that -at the same BAC- a cyclist is far more impaired at the operation of their vehicle than a driver.

Of course a cyclist is much less likely to harm someone other than themselves, so the moral calculus is somewhat different, which leads me to a second factor I thought might bump up the cyclist numbers: There are some people who are conscious enough about not killing someone w/ a car by driving drunk who will “for safety” choose to bike instead when drinking. Or, having chosen to bike for whatever reason, would be more likely to drink more since they’re not getting behind the wheel.

Finally, drivers, walkers, and cyclists alike often fail to realize that the 0.08% legal BAC limit is really not that high. With the surge in popularity of craft beers, which can be two or more times as boozy as the “standard” cheap American beers — and are more often served in 16 oz pints than 12 oz bottles/cans, I’d bet a typical adult male could be approaching 0.08 after just 2 pints, and well over the limit after three.

But if you ride after you get drunk, you sober up faster. I mean, that’s a thing, right?

What cvacalhoun said. I don’t think I have ever left an event inebriated, but I am less OCD about time after drinking than when driving. And unless it’s a wide open trail, I am going really slowly (as my post happy hour Stravas up the hill from Shirlington will attest)