i was wondering if you people BUI (bike ui) when you commute after a party or something else. i feel i can still control the bike very well when i have had good amount of alkihol.

I don't, but then I don't drink or, as a general rule, party.

I view BUI is the same light as DUI and in this state it's just as illegal.

Thursday, March 8, 2001

Many Bicyclists Drunk in Accidents

By Ira Dreyfuss

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - As a drunken bicyclist, Martin Guttenplan thought he was doing fine. "I was pretty giddy and could hardly ride the bike, but I thought I did a great job," said Guttenplan, a Florida state transportation planner who got deliberately drunk to demonstrate how alcohol affects bike riding.

Guttenplan teaches bike education for the League of American Bicyclists, a riders' group. He was on a test course for a segment of the TV program "Inside Edition." He had reached a 0.12 percent blood-alcohol level 0.08 percent can get a person arrested in Florida.

"I moved way out into the lane. I was going on the wrong side of the cones. All those sorts of things," Guttenplan recalled of the segment, shot about three years ago. "But what was most scary about it was that, in that state, I thought I was doing OK. Any sense of judgment was also affected."

Guttenplan's experience is reflected in a new study. Researchers at Johns Hopkins, reviewing 124 Maryland accidents involving cyclists ages 15 years or older, found that 24 percent of those who died and 9 percent of those seriously injured had blood-alcohol levels of 0.02 percent or higher.

"The great majority of the ones who had been drinking were above 0.10 percent, which is the Maryland point at which you are considered to be impaired," said researcher Susan P. Baker. "The average blood-alcohol concentration was 0.18 percent, which is very, very high."

Riding a bike takes more physical ability than driving a car, yet many of the riders in the accidents were pretty far gone, Baker said. At a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.18 percent, "you or I probably would not be able to find our bicycles," she said. "It suggests to me that, if they can ride bicycles with blood-alcohol concentrations that high, they are probably pretty serious drinkers."

Risks of injury rose with the blood-alcohol level, the study found. At 0.08 percent, the risk was 20 times the level faced by people with levels below 0.02 percent.

The researchers compared those cases to 342 other cyclists who were stopped later at the same places and times of day of the accidents. Those riders were given breath tests to determine blood-alcohol levels.

About 3 percent of the random rider sample had blood-alcohol levels of 0.02 percent or more. However, the data probably understate the prevalence and danger of drunken biking, said the report in the Feb. 21 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. The findings only cover daylight accidents, because researchers felt it unsafe to have investigators out at night for the onsite surveys. "Alcohol is even more of a problem at night," Baker said.

Researchers also found that drunken riders were less likely to wear helmets. Thirty-five percent of the interviewed riders wore helmets, compared with 5 percent of those in accidents. Perhaps the riders in the accidents did not own a helmet or chose not to put one on, the report speculated. Another possibility is that the riders were too impaired to realize they needed a helmet, it said.

Although the study did not examine it, Baker suspected many of the injured riders had taken to biking because they had lost their drivers' licenses due to driving under the influence of alcohol.

A police officer in Boulder, Colo., has found this often to be the case in his area. "I would say maybe 30 percent are people who don't have a license because of DUI restrictions," said Sgt. Rob Bustrom. "They are trying an alternate mode, but they haven't quit the DUI part of it."

Drivers and cyclists under the influence commonly think their ability is greater than the alcohol tests reveal, Bustrom said. "Most people involved in the testing feel they are doing real good ... when they don't," he said.

i would never fallow up alkihol with a commute or a post.

i just find my cordination much better when i am exercising than sitting down. plus i don't drink to get too drunk just buzzed. 2 times me and my friend where biking we both got tangled (handle bar over handle bar) but we both controled it and manuvered out.

I don't care if you guys crash when you're riding drunk. I object to the risk you expose others to, those who do not care to be part of your little self-indulgent festival.

Don't drink and drive OR bike.

I'm against drinking and riding generally, but........

When I was a kid I used to ride smashed all the time--- sometimes so messed up I couldn't really remember riding home. Yeah, I had a few crashes. Yeah, I was risking my life and I guess I could have hurt somebody. But honestly, I think I didn't really endanger anyone but me-- I could of been killed under a bus, but I couldn't have t-boned a bus and killed anyone else.

So in a harm reduction model, riding while drunk isn't the same as driving while drunk. I'd like to ask everybody not to do it of course, but when I was 17 though 23, I really didn't care what old coots like me thought anyway.

I always try to find some middle ground with drugs and booze when it comes to young folks and I'm not 100% sure what I feel about mixing bikes and beer.

Problem is, drunken riding could result in a larger vehicle having to take evasive action, causing a worse crash than a bicycle alone would cause.

I have no patience with irresponsible drunks, and very little patience with responsible ones.

How are riders (drunk or not), responsible for a driver causing a worse crash due to evasive action. Last I checked, as a driver, I'm responsible for knowing where all the cars around me (within a reasonable distance) are at all times. If I have the choice between running over a rider (who's doing something illegal, i.e. I'm not responsible if I hit him), and causing a worse crash. Then I run down the rider...
You can't blame the rider for the driver making things worse

I agree. Isn't riding on the road with drivers who may be DUI, driving while chatting on the phone, etc., enough of a risk? I want all my faculties when I am operating any vehicle; otherwise your are taking stupid risks.

Yes, actually, I can.

I was taught just the opposite, in drivers' education:

When given a choice between hitting a cyclist or someone in a 2000 pound cage, I hit the other car. It's likely the difference between sending an insurance adjuster or a coroner.

Trust me, even if it is not your fault, you don't want a dead guy under your car.

A guy I worked with broke his neck in a one-bike accident while intoxicated. Luckily for him, his spinal cord remained intact, but it made me reconsider.

There is a big difference between biking while drinking and while intoxicated. .08 or .10 are both pretty high levels of alcohol- certainly more than two or three beers over an hour or two. I now live in a country where the legal limit is .02 !! People worry about driving to work the day after a party.

I don't drink and drive or drink and ride, however, if I had a beer or two I would not think either would be that much more dangerous. (I know its an increased risk).

I guess I'll summarize my thoughts with a retorical question: Would you rather be hit by a drunk driver or a drunk cyclist? Obviously the correct answer is neither, but it should be clear that cycling drunk poses primarily a risk to the cyclist while driving drunk poses primarily a risk to others. As such, drunk cyclists do not cause me near the anger that drunk drivers do.

This very reason is why I try (although sometimes I fail ) to follow all traffic regulations. While I personally won't cause any harm by going through a red light in front a car, when the driver of that car swerves to avoid me and runs down someone else, I won't feel much better than if it had been me that was run over. Well, maybe a little, but the pain would probably last longer.

But, this brings up an interesting question. When I lived in Philly, I often walked home from various bars or parties completely hammered, often not even remembering much of the trip home. In that state, I imagine I was as much of a hazard to vehicles on the roads as I would have been if I was a little buzzed on a bike. Granted, while walking I was mostly on the sidewalk but that wouldn't stop me from walking through an intersection in front of a car and causing an accident. But there is no law against W(walking)UI, right?

I drink a lot and I bike a lot, but I can't remember the last time I drank and biked, if ever. If I'm getting drunk, I'm either at home not goin anywhere, at a pub downtown with my wife (taxi), or at a friends house where my wife and I take turns being designated drivers. However, if it weren't for my ball-n-chain not being into biking, I'd probably bike drunk without a second thought.

When i'm in the mountains biking, I smoke weed.

Try "Drunk and disorderly" or "Public intoxication". Stuff like that is against the law in many communities. Probably not enforced as often as it should be, but illegal anyway.

My wife and I do the exact same thing [all hail the Ship and Anchor!], except that if we're biking around and stop for a pint, we take it easy and don't get all hammered up. We have two good-sized hills to climb on the way home, and having 4-6 pints in the belly makes it pretty tough. 2-3 pints is no problem.

Just to be clear, I define worse as more people dead/injured. Obviously, if I'm going to hit the rider, or hit the SUV @30mph, then I'm going for the SUV. But if I'm going 55mph, and it's a case of hitting the rider who's doing something illegal, or broadsiding the stationary pinto with five people in it... It's the rider who's SOL.

How about drinking and walking? You could, I would think, cause an accident by stumbling out onto the road, or crossing the street without looking. When the bars are let out, there are all kinds of drunken folks plying the streets.

Maybe, if you party too much, you should just lay down where ever you are until you are sober. Just to be safe.

And don't think about having sex just because you are laying down. You might catch an STD, or an unwanted pregnancy.

And no smoking!!! Don't you know that's bad for you?!?!?!

But a teetotalin' safety nanny with his nose up in the air and a bug stuck up his whatever might trip over you.

The blood alcohol level 0.02 was mentioned several times in the article. Why? Is that the lowest accurately measurable level? Is it the legal limit in many places?

Here, the limit is 0.08, just less than two drinks, making true the old adage: "One's enough (OK to bike home), two's too many (get a ride or walk), three's not nearly enough (pass out on the floor and bike home the next day).

Occifer, I want to r'port a crime. I wuz jus sittin in dis bar drinkin, and when I came out here I found dat some somuva***** went and got my bicycle drunk!

I actually said that to an MP once. In Japan we used to rent what we called Benjo Bombers from the PX - big ole steel fixed-gear cruisers, coaster brakes, chain guards, bell, light & generator, etc. We'd go out into da Ville and get plastered, then have little bike rodeos riding back to the base...and on the base, seeing who could kick who over or jumping benjo ditches, which is why the bikes got their nickname. It was a lot of fun, we were lucky not to kill ourselves. We were young, stupid and bullet-proof.

Don't ride drunk - just because some of us were morons in our youth doesn't make us role-models to be emulated. One would hope people have gotten smarter over the last few decades.

The John Hopkins Study in the quoted article used deeply flawed methodology and reflected the bias/agenda of its authors. See:
https://www.rightofway.org/research/JAMA_Cover.html