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Drink Driving

Drink Driving is a criminal offence and if you or a loved one is charged with a drink driving offence it can be an emotional and confusing experience. Often it is the only time people come in contact with the police and the law.

Things seem to move very fast after the event and without accurate and professional legal advice it can be a disorientating and frightening experience. With the possibility of licence disqualification and in certain circumstances imprisonment, it is also very important to get expert advice and representation.

In NSW there are five distinct offences for drink driving:

Drink driving is a factor in about 20 per cent of all fatal crashes in NSW and results in the death of over 100 people every year. The majority of drink drivers in fatal crashes are male (88 per cent) and aged under 40 years (75 per cent).

A driver’s risk of being involved in a crash increases with the amount of alcohol in the blood stream. At .05 the risk of a crash for the average driver is about twice that of zero blood alcohol. The risk keeps getting higher as the blood alcohol level rises:

  • at .08 the risk is 3.5 times higher than at zero
  • at .1 it is about 7 times higher than at zero
  • at .15 it is 25 times higher than at zero.

Guessing your Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) is inaccurate because:

  • alcohol concentration in drinks vary from 2.5% to over 40%
  • spirits may not be mixed with precision
  • drinks may be topped up
  • pre-mixed drinks contain more than one standard drink.

Factors such as your gender, size, weight, health and liver function will affect your BAC:

  • size and weight — a smaller person will have a higher BAC
  • liver function — an unhealthy liver processes alcohol more slowly
  • gender — a woman will have higher BAC
  • consumption of food — lack of food in the stomach means faster absorption

Eating after drinking will not reduce the BAC. BAC can continue to rise up to two hours after drinking has stopped. The Government no longer suggests guidelines as to the number of standard drinks per hour because of the variations in alcohol content and factors that affect the BAC

Lenz Legal will provide you with timely specialist legal advice to help you answer your drink driving charges keeping you informed of your rights and thereby more in control of your situation.

Lenz Legal will guide you throughout this process whether you plead guilty or defend the charge.  At Lenz Legal we guarantee that you will have an expert drink driving solicitor advising you from start to finish.