Crime & Safety

How Many Drinks Will Get You A DUI? [Chart]

Elmhurst police will continue their DUI enforcement campaign through New Year's. Here's what you should know about how alcohol affects your system—and your criminal record.

Do you know how many drinks you can have before you're in danger of getting a drunken driving violation? This chart can offer some insight, but it's not meant to guide your decisions on New Year's Eve.

Elmhurst police are continuing their Stay Sober of Get Pulled Over campaign through the New Year's holiday. That means extra officers will be on the streets, especially during the overnight hours, looking for drunken drivers and seat belt violators.

When police pull drivers over for suspected drunken driving, officers ask them to perform field sobriety tests and to take a breath test to measure blood alcohol content. A BAC test measures the percentage of alcohol present in a person's bloodstream. The legal limit is 0.08.

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According to the Virginia Tech Alcohol Abuse Prevention website, every 40 minutes, 0.01 percent of alcohol leaves your system. 

The limit for people under 21 is 0.02. But any alcohol consumption will get you charged if you're underage.

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These charts show, in general, how many drinks it takes to become too impaired to drive. They're not exact. Police say the best way to keep yourself, your passengers and other motorists safe—and avoid a drunken driving charge—is to not drive after you've been drinking any amount of alcohol.


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