Gardai have been out in force this August bank holiday weekend, targeting a number of offences including drink driving.
Officers have been conducting Mandatory Intoxicant Testing checkpoints in several locations, including Louth where over 325 drivers were tested for drugs and alcohol yesterday with six arrests.
The morning after is a particularly dangerous period for drink drivers, and gardai say this is reflected in the number of early-morning checkpoints they will be conducting.
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It comes as Drinkaware said bank holiday weekends tend to see spikes in road accidents.
CEO Sheena Horgan said: “We know that the Irish public have the best of intentions and want to do the right thing. The massive increase of 113% in visits to the Drinkaware drink driving webpage this year shows that people want to know the facts and to keep their families and communities safe."
According to Drinkaware, it takes at least one hour to process one standard drink . Examples of a standard drink are half a pint of beer, 100ml glass of wine, or a standard measure of spirits.
The time starts from when the last drink is finished. For example, if a person finished three pints of beer at midnight, they will have consumed six standard drinks, this means they need six hours from midnight when they stopped drinking before their body will have processed the alcohol and they should not get behind the wheel of a car until 6am at the earliest
Many things such as your weight, age, gender, metabolism, mood, whether you’ve eaten etc, can further delay the processing time.
Worried you could be over the limit this weekend? Drinkaware have a alcohol calculator that will tell you how long it will take to process the amount of drink you have.
10 pints of lager/stout
If you end up having 10 pints of Guinness, Heineken, Carlsberg or some other lager or stout in and around 4.5%, according to Drinkaware you can't drive for 20 hours after you finish your last drink.
So if you head to bed at midnight, you can't drive until 8pm the following night.
1 bottle of wine
If you polish off one bottle of red or white wine you will have to stay off the road for eight hours after you finish, according to Drinkaware.
10 gin and tonics
Drinking 10 gin and tonics would mean no driving for 10 hours after your final drink.
12 pints and 6 vodkas with mixers
Some people going for a proper wild night could be drinking pints in the pub for the day and then going to a nightclub and switching to the vodka.
This one could have you feeling particularly bad the next day and that is reflected in how long you have to stay off the road.
According to Drinkaware, you will have to avoid driving for 30 hours after your last drink.
Calculate your own
These figures above are estimated amounts and will vary depending on a person's metabolism, what they ate and other things.
If you want to calculate your own, head on over to this drinkaware.ie page.
Some of the numbers of drinks above are at very harmful levels.
Binge drinking is defined as consuming 60 grams of pure alcohol - six or more standard drinks - in one sitting.
This is the equivalent of three pints of cider (568ml), six bottles of lager (330ml) or four glasses of prosecco (150ml).
There is more information on the low risk weekly alcohol guidelines on this drinkaware.ie webpage.
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