A winter storm bringing squalls and ice, as well as the first completely unconfined New Year’s Eve in two years, creates a potentially explosive cocktail in terms of road accidents.
On the occasion of the holiday season, the spokesperson for the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), Mario Vaillancourt, and the executive director of Éduc’alcool, Geneviève Desautels, deconstruct tenacious myths about consumption alcohol and drunk driving.
Myth number 1 : if I have a blood alcohol level of less than 80 mg/100 ml, I can drive safely
The legal limit for driving is 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood. On the other hand, if a police officer judges that you are impaired, you can be arrested even if you do not exceed this limit.
Indeed, alcohol can be dangerous, even below the legal limit. The SAAQ even estimates that “the risk of a fatal accident is 4.5 times higher for a driver with a blood alcohol level of 50 to 80 mg/100 ml than for a sober driver”.
“When you drink, you don’t drive,” says Mr. Vaillancourt. With the risk of accidents, injuries, deaths, arrests and even criminal charges, “the game is not worth the candle,” he says.
According to the Sûreté du Québec, “between 2016 and 2022, on average, alcohol was involved in 25% of fatal collisions and in 15% of collisions with serious injuries”.
Myth number 2 : I do not need to organize my trips in advance
“Don’t have that conversation once the damage is done: you’re going to get into stubbornness with someone who doesn’t have the same perception of danger as you do,” warns Ms.me Desautels.
Some solutions, like having a designated driver, need to be taken before the event. It is also possible to arrange to sleep on site, call a taxi or an Operation Red Nose volunteer or take public transport.
It should be noted, however, that due to the storm, Operation Red Nose services are canceled in some regions.
Myth number 3 : I can judge by feeling if I drank too much to drive
It is actually very difficult to assess one’s own state of intoxication.
Alcohol, especially when we have taken a little more than we should, will impair our judgment and alter our perception of risk. That’s why people, when they tell us “I think I’m okay”, they’re not lying to us. It’s just that they lie to themselves because of the effect of alcohol.
Geneviève Desautels, Executive Director of Éduc’alcool
Moreover, even if we stopped drinking for the evening, our condition may still continue to worsen. “A few minutes later, our body will have assimilated the alcohol, and there we will have more in the blood,” recalls Mr. Vaillancourt.
Alcohol can take up to 90 minutes to pass through our digestive system.
Myth number 4 : last time I drank the same amount of alcohol and was ok, so I don’t need to worry about that
Not everyone has the same tolerance, but it’s also true that the same person can react differently from day to day.
“It may be our level of fatigue, or there may be taking medication or drugs mixed with alcohol,” according to Mr. Vaillancourt. This is because some common medications like antidepressants and allergy pills can have unintended effects when mixed with alcohol, including drowsiness.
You also have to ask yourself: how much do I really know how many drinks I’ve had? After all, it’s not uncommon on a drunken evening for our host to fill our cup with wine as we empty it.
Even if you avoid filling your cup before it is empty, it remains to be seen whether the glass in question really corresponds to consumption. As pointed out by M.me Desautels, “we will advise your guests to count their glasses, but if they count their glasses and each time they count that they took one when they took one and a quarter, you will have understood that it does not give the same calculation at the end of the evening”.
On its website, Éduc’alcool presents a tool to calculate what a standard drink is for different types of drinks.
Myth number 5 : I know a technique to get drunk
The famous coffee, a very cold shower, Grandma’s secret recipe or even an industrial quantity of large glasses of water do nothing: there is no way to get drunk faster.
“Only time can obviously play on the fact that we will metabolize alcohol,” says Mme Desautels. And for that, what we drank must pass through our digestive system and reach the liver.