Drink-drive limits, country by country

Three limits, not one

Most countries set more than one drink-drive limit. There is a standard limit for experienced drivers, and often lower limits for novice drivers (in their first years) and for professional drivers (buses, lorries, taxis). The calculator shows all three for the country you select, wherever the source publishes them (European Transport Safety Council). Across most of Europe the standard limit is 0.5 g/L of blood, but several countries allow none at all — Czechia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia sit at zero. In the United States most states use 0.08 g/dL, with Utah lower at 0.05 g/dL (CDC).

"Under the limit" is not "safe"

A legal limit marks where a penalty begins, not where impairment begins. The CDC states plainly that driving is affected below the legal thresholds, and crash risk climbs steadily with BAC: at 0.08 g/dL a driver is about four times more likely to crash than a sober one, and about twelve times at 0.15 g/dL (NHTSA). Because the estimate is a range, the honest reading near a limit is often "the range crosses it" — which the calculator says rather than pretending the single number is under. Treat that as over, not under.

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