Eleven months in jail is going to do major damage to your life, no question about it.

I think most of us if given the choice would prefer ten drunk cyclists on the road rather than ten drunk car drivers. I would.

In LA you can get a CUI, (cycling under the influence) fine $250. The level of alcohol in your blood is unclear to me, it's not the same as driving a car...I don't believe that it's enforced often (to the best of my knowledge).

It's rather a conundrum for drinkers, isn't it? On one hand, there are bars all around us, parties with alcohol, all encouraging us not to drink alone at home. Does everyone always know when they have had too much to ride a bike? What if you are too far from home to walk anyway?

Should cabs have bike racks?

Not unless the owners/operators want racks.

If you drive or ride somewhere, get drunk, and need to get home you can just take a cab (or bus) and come back for your car/bike when you're sober.

Not only in Davis but anywhere in California,DUI on bicycles is the norm.It's just like driving a car,and you know it goes on your "permanent record"...LOL!

In my experience I've found that unlike cars, I can't operate a bicycle if properly drunk.

I can however, walk while pushing my bicycle drunk. Unlike a car.

One thing alcohol does do is destroy the ability of your blood to carry oxygen...so your brain doesn't get all the O2 it needs, and neither do your legs. I found this wasn't such a problem in Tulsa, where it is possible to avoid going up hills to get home. But then I moved to Seattle, and rented an apartment on the top of a hill...so now I don't ride after drinking so much, because going up the hill is just too painful.

hi, new here, just saw this thread, my 2 cents.

<background>i live in a mid sized college town that is notorious for handing out DUI's. i was car less for four years, and am currently very car lite since i can get anywhere here in about 10 minutes on a bike.

i also bar tend and feel i am a very competent bicyclist. i've ridden home drunk/wasted/buzzed a million times. i've never crashed, never been stopped by the cops. my commute to work is less than two miles and flat. traffic is not heavy at all by the time i leave work (drunk). these things contribute to my thoughts on drunk biking. dunno if i could do it if my ride was twice that or if in heavy traffic, etc. to me it's like muscle memory, hop on ride home. alcohol affects us all differently.

One of the nice things about bar hopping on a bike vs car, it's MUCH easier to push the bike home than the car. ;)

Im done drinking for a while get in WAY to much trouble with it wish i would of tried it when i did drink tho.

Cycling after a few beers down here is fairly serious. You will get done as if you were driving a car. To boot, you are permitted no alcohol in your system whatsoever while driving.

What's really screwed up is that in some places you can get a DUI while riding a horse. Not like the horse is going to trample someone because you're drunk.

Maybe they mean that the horse can't be drunk. :)

I calculated the ft. lbs. of energy I generate on my bike when coming down a hill. It was equivalent to a .50 Browning Machine Gun bullet. Don't drink and pedal, boyos. Not only will you screw your chances of recovery if some idiot injures you, you can most certainly kill a person with your bike. Not to mention the fact that you can kill yourself or break your neck because your reflexes are impaired.

Now all you need to do is to turn the cyclist into a bullet so your analogy would make sense. Just because you're getting hit by two objects with the same energy doesn't mean they are of similar lethality. There are many many ways the energy of a speeding cyclist could be converted upon a cyclist/person collision, not so much with a bullet/person collision. Its the difference between getting hit by a well packed iceball and a fluffy snowball that'll shatter on impact.

While it's true that there is a small chance that a cyclist could kill someone in a collision, it's also true that the cyclist might get struck by a falling jetliner right before impact, so LOGICALLY those improbably events will cancel each other out and its impossible for a cyclist to kill someone in a collision (because it would be the jetliners fault!). ;)

Here in Ontario, DUI laws only apply to *motor* vehicles. However if you are drunk on a bike and biking erratically then you can still be charged with "Careless driving". (and probably some kind of public drunkenness thing too, and no doubt mischief depending on what you are doing!)

The bullet is just by way of illustration. The point is that having a person fly into you going 15 or 20 MPH is most certainly dangerous. It may not be enough to kill a person all the time, but it certainly *can.* Esp. if they're young or small. Not to mention what it can do to the rider.

Don't drink a bunch then go zipping around on your bike. Agreed?

In Louisiana the Supreme Court ruled that you cannot get a DWI on a bike. Hooray!

Cosmoline, depends on what you mean by a bunch. Drunk, I'd have to walk since I couldn't stay upright. Tipsy, I'm riding extra defensively, scared that my slowed reactions will get me in trouble. Buzzed, I'm flying through traffic like a madman because I just feel so darn good!

Oh, and I've never heard of anyone killed or injured by being struck by a cyclist, drunk or otherwise. I agree there is a chance, but the circumstantial evidence says that it's a very remote one. *Ok, so spectators have gotten hit watching cycling races and I'm sure messengers have knocked some folks on their rumps, but the killing thing still holds right?*

Most of the time there are no serious injuries, and unlike autos there's no mandatory reporting requirement in most cities. So they pass unreported. But if you doubt the notion that a bike can hurt or kill you, I invite you to stand still while I piledrive into you on the Hoss ;-) Imagine a linebacker on a flying piece of steel hitting you at 20 mph.

As far as specific incidents, a few years back in Eugene a cyclist was killed in a nasty bike/bike accident.

Here's another reference:

https://www.amherst.edu/47410

There are quite a few documented cases of cyclists striking and killing pedestrians...maybe we should mandate helmets for peds?;)

Aaron:)

+1

Uhh, successful?

I got stopped last fall at a roadside sobriety checkpoint on my way home after being at a house party and local town fair. It was 3AM and the cops must have been bored because as I approached, they flagged me down with a flashlight. I stopped (and heard the beer bottles in my backpack clink together loudly) and they asked me where I was coming from and where I was going. I slurred one of my answers and they pounced on it. I told them it was because I was out of breath. Then I quickly changed the subject and started saying that they were positioning the check points better now because that night and the night before they were in position to be more hidden and able to nail people easier...unless the driver took this one street and this other turn and got onto the main road over at this other place past the check point. They looked at me astonished and said, "Really??" I said, "Yeah, that was the way I used to do it." Then then they all laughed and told me to "get out of here!!" I suspect there would have been a different outcome if I had been driving a car.

Just don't eat the magic brownies. :innocent:

I am exactly the same way. Only time I ever crashed was about a week after getting my first set of clipless pedals. Got a bit more drunk than I had planned and crashed 4 times in about 30 minutes. Nothing serious though as they all happened while clipping in or out so I was probably going about two mph.

I have been hurt a few times riding a bike drunk back in college. Bleed like a stuck pig too. I personally think the legal thing should be more of a drunk in public charge rather than a DUI, as you are not really endangering others as seriously as in a car, but that is just my opinion.