NOW that the legal Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limit has been halved from 0.9 mg/mL to 0.5 mg/mL and the legal breath alcohol limit from 39mg to 22mg, a short grace period has been granted for drivers who fall within the formerly legal range.
On March 3, the new law reducing the BAC limit to the European average took effect in an effort to halve road deaths by 2010 and improve Cyprus’ embarrassing track record on road safety.
Police Spokesman Demetris Demetriou told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that so far all the tested drivers falling within the formerly legal range were taken to police headquarters, where they were only given a warning. Police then drove them to their residences.
“We are going to wait for a few more days before prosecuting so that the public can be properly informed about the change in the blood-alcohol limit,” Demetriou said.
Last weekend 46 drivers who were given a breath test were found to have a BAC of between 22mg and 39mg, the previously legal range.
All 46 drivers were taken to headquarters, given a formal warning and then driven back to their residences.
Demetriou said that all the drivers who were over the breath limit level of 39mg spent the night in prison and were tried in court the next day. Though no date has been established yet, at the end of the temporary grace period any drivers over the limit of 22mg will be prosecuted in the same way.
In general one unit of alcohol is equal to one glass of wine, one beer (not a pint), or one shot of alcohol. But the number of drinks consumed is not a good way to determine the BAC limit, which will vary depending on the strength of the drinks and on the body weight, gender, and body fat content of the drinker.
A drink with one ounce of alcohol (the average mixed drink is 1½ ounces of alcohol) will increase the average person’s BAC by around 0.3 per cent. The present limit in Cyprus is 0.5 per cent, formerly 0.9 per cent.
The average person can generally metabolise one unit of alcohol per hour.
In Cyprus, police have the right to flag down cars and conduct random searches without the driver having committed any traffic violations.
As part of the recent crackdown on drink driving, police have acquired two more breath analyser mobile units.
Before the reduction in drink driving limit, Cyprus had the highest legal BAC limit in all of Europe. Sweden, as well as some of the newer EU countries like Poland and Estonia have BAC limits of 0.2 mg/ml while Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have zero-tolerance laws (0.0 mg/ml).
Out of the 32 blood tests taken on drivers killed in accidents in 2005, 13 of them (40.6 per cent) exceeded the legal Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limit, which at the time was 0.9 mg/ml.
Breathalysers for self-testing
INEXPENSIVE personal breath analysers are now available on the market, most of them the size of a mobile phone or smaller. To get a reading, the user exhales for about five seconds into the gadget. Many of them have chemically coated crystals that change colour if the user’s breath has a certain BAC level.
All breath analysers estimate blood alcohol levels indirectly, with various degrees of reliability. Larger machines generally yield more accurate results than hand-held units.
Although there are many reports that such breath analyser units are reliable, many experts argue against self-testing; they claim that errors are too likely since a false reading will result if the person does not breath correctly into the device, something that becomes more likely the more alcohol a person has.
There are also automobiles due to be released that require the user to first breath into a breath analyser before starting the car. If the driver is above the legal limit, the car will not start.
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