What is the drink drive limit in Australia?

The drink drive limit in Australia is 0.05% blood alcohol concentration for most drivers. This means fewer standard drinks per hour than in the UK. Drink-driving in Australia is illegal, but that law is often broken – especially in country areas.

Australia may drive on the left, but driving in Australia isn’t the same as in the UK. Drink driving laws are slightly different in every Australian state and territory, but the maximum blood alcohol limit is consistent across the country. The legal blood alcohol concentration limit for most drivers in Australia is 0.05%.

Drink drive limit in Australia

The drink drive limit in Australia is different for drivers who have recently passed their test, drivers of heavy vehicles and drivers of passenger vehicles (ie. Taxis and buses). This will not affect most visitors, but if this does apply to you, it is safer to assume that you’ve got to blow 0.00% into a breathalyser than sift through state law for exceptions.

The bad news for anyone wishing to self-drive on a wine tour is that the legal limit in Australia is lower than in most of the UK. For Scotland, 0.05% blood alcohol concentration is the limit. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland it’s 0.08%. That means you can’t drink as much as you would at home before you’re illegally drink-driving in Australia.

As an extremely rough guideline, that means one standard drink per hour for women, and two standard drinks in the first hour for men, followed by one per hour after that. Certain individuals will likely have to drink less than that to stay within the limit. These include inexperienced drinkers, shorter people, those with higher body fat and those with an empty stomach

For estimation purposes, a 285ml glass of full strength beer is about 1.1 standard drinks. That’s a schooner in Adelaide, and a pot, half-pint or middy elsewhere.

A 375ml bottle is 1.4 standard drinks. With wine, a 150ml glass of 13.5% red wine is 1.6 standard drinks. That said, the best advice is to stay away from the bottle shop and drink nothing at all when driving. Alas, this is wisdom not often adhered to at night in country areas, where drink-driving in Australia is pretty common. The legal drinking age in Australia, incidentally, is 18 in licensed premises.

For driving under the influence of drugs, there must be no drugs in your system. This includes cannabis in the Australian Capital Territory, where marijuana is partially decriminalised.

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