Drinking Before You Drive in Calgary is Never a Good Idea: Part 1

OK, drinking before you drive anywhere is never a good idea. The Calgary Police are particularly zealous about tracking down and arresting people for DUI, but the legal trouble you could get in shouldn't be your only, or even your primary, reason for staying out of the driver's seat after you've had a drink. Your safety and the safety of those around you should be what matters most.

And from that perspective, no amount of drinking before you drive is ever a good idea.

Even one drink, even half a drink, could be enough for someone to become an unsafe driver. If there's enough alcohol in your system for you to feel the effects, even slightly, then your physiology and your cognitive abilities have been altered. That makes you a greater danger to yourself and every other driver, cyclist, and pedestrian you're sharing Calgary's roads with, and that's something that should give you pause before you get behind the wheel.

The DUI laws in effect in Calgary essential recognize three levels of alcohol use as measured by BAC or blood alcohol content (which can also be indirectly measured using breath analysis or a "breathalyzer"). These legal levels were developed based on the physiological responses to certain amounts of alcohol in the average person, but it's important to remember that every person's body is different and you can still be a danger, and still be charged with a DUI, even if your BAC is below the legal limit(s).