General Question

SamIAm's avatar

If I had a few beers with dinner last night, would it affect blowing into a breathalyzer today?

Asked by SamIAm (8703points) January 15th, 2011

This may sound silly… I need to borrow someone’s car and they have the breathalyzer thing attached to start it. If I had 4 beers last night (with dinner, but all before midnight), will it affect the breathalyzer today at 1pm?

I don’t think it would but I don’t want my friend would get in trouble if I have any trace of alcohol in me

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10 Answers

poisonedantidote's avatar

It has been known to happen. I’m no expert on the subject, but I have heard more than once, about people getting a fine when they had not had anything to drink that day.

Then again, where I live I have also seen cops pushing a parked car on to yellow lines to give it a ticket, maybe they faked the test.

Seaofclouds's avatar

It should be out of your system, but I don’t know how sensitive those machines are. The only way you’ll know is to try.

Lightlyseared's avatar

Well it might depend on what sort of beer and the volume of each glass. Some belgian beers (Duval for example) are particularly strong and four pints of that would take your system longer to get rid of than four 250ml bottles of Becks.

john65pennington's avatar

Eating food and drinking beer will normally absorb most of the alcohol in the beer. drinking alcohol on an empty stomach is what intoxicates a person.

Most drunk drivers are required to stay in jail 18 hours. this gives the alcohol in their body, time to dissipate.

You should have no problem.

Baddreamer27's avatar

Generally you should follow the rule of 1 alcoholic drink per hour. It takes the body approximately 1 hour to process the alcohol in one 12oz beer, 5oz of wine or one 1½ oz shot of 80 proof liquor. Everyone is different and can be affected differently by alcohol consumption. The breathalyzer analyzes the BAC (blood alcohol content). BAC is a percentage representing parts of alcohol to 10,000 parts of other blood components. A BAC of 0.05% BAC means 5 parts alcohol to 10,000 parts of blood components. BUT here is a little something to consider: A person that weighs 180 lbs may have a BAC of .06% after three drinks but a person weighing 100lbs may have a BAC of .11%...The Navy drills this into our heads…Every year we sit through Alcohol deglamorization classes and “Right Spirit” and a slew of other courses…

casheroo's avatar

No.
My husband had one of those for a while. You just can’t drive while intoxicated, you won’t still be affected the next day.

Rarebear's avatar

No. It’s a zero order elimination effect.

ziggityjiggity's avatar

your body metabolized that low amount of alcohol a long time ago buddy, you’re fine lol

amykloster's avatar

That seems like it would be very unlikely. Blood Acohol Content is made up of a bunch of factors, such as the ones listed in this article. But you are almost certainly fine at this point.

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