New app can help drivers avoid morning after drink-driving
A new app that enables people to calculate roughly when the alcohol they have drunk will have passed through their body has been launched as part of the Morning After drink-drive campaign.
A new app that enables people to calculate roughly when the alcohol they have drunk will have passed through their body has been launched as part of the Morning After drink-drive campaign.
The app, called the Morning After Calculator, presents a wide range of alcoholic drinks under the headings beer and lager, cider, wine and champagne, spirits and alcopops and cocktails.
The user simply enters the drinks he or she is consuming (or has consumed) and the app calculates roughly when the alcohol will have passed through their body. It allows one hour for each unit of alcohol, plus an additional hour for the alcohol to enter the bloodstream, and then rounds up the calculation to the nearest half hour.
The app bases its calculation from the time the user stops drinking, not when they start drinking. While accepting this is perhaps over-cautious, the Morning After team says it would rather be safe than sorry.
The hours before driving calculation is not based on any drink-drive limit it is the length of time when the alcohol in the drinks the person has consumed is likely to have passed through their body.
Matt Peskett, chair of West of England Road Safety Partnership, said: Lets make one thing absolutely clear this app is not intended to help people work out how much they can drink on a night out before driving home.
And the calculator wont help you if you are arrested for drink-driving. What it will do is enable you to calculate roughly how long alcohol stays in the body and realise that alcohol may still be present the morning after a drinking session.
The West of England Road Safety Partnership consists of four unitary authorities Bath and North East Somerset Council, Bristol City Council, North Somerset Council and South Gloucestershire Council and Avon and Somerset Constabulary, the NHS and Avon Fire and Rescue. This initiative is also supported by Somerset Road Safety.
Established in 2006, the Morning After campaign is designed to help people avoid a drink-drive conviction or endanger themselves and others by unwittingly driving while over the limit the morning after drinking alcohol.
During 2014, the campaign website received almost 370,000 visits from people seeking information about morning after drink-driving. Traffic to the website peaks on Sunday evenings (when drivers thoughts turn to Monday morning) and during public holidays particularly the festive/New Year period.
The partnership meets regularly through a range of working groups that focus on issues such as policy development, data sharing, disseminating best practice and the joint delivery of road safety interventions.