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by 411111111111111 1394 days ago
Tbf, the danger of drunk cycling is significantly lower to third parties vs driving in a car. And you're unlikely to succeed if you're too drunk as well, as you still need to balance - which drunk people can't.

It's still illegal in most places however, so your point stands

2 comments

Drunk cyclists can. Back in my wild years, on some occasions walking to the bike was the difficult part. Bikes are much better at self-stabilizing than legs. The main danger (outside of going too fast, if you happen to have the training) is losing track of traffic. This isn't much of a problem on deserted night-time streets, but can easily be overwhelming during the day. Don't ever consider the bike when planning for daytime drinking.

As for the law, it's good to have limits to drunk cycling, but it's important to have them tolerate a considerably higher BAC than those for driving.

The potential injuries from drunk biking is in a whole other league the the injuries from drunk driving. Most bike injuries can be patched up at you local clinic (or even your home; unless your injury involves a car; so safe bike infrastructure is essential in making drunk biking safe), whereas drunk driving can cause some pretty horrendous injuries, to you, or your victims. The two modes should not be compared.
Here is Denmark there is a BAC limit for cars, motorcycles, mopeds etc of 0.5

The limit for a bicycle is if you can cycle safely, and it is only a fixed fine. You can go to prison for doing it in the other cases (though you will typically not, for a first offence).

The other advantage is that you can walk home with your bicycle if you are too drunk to drive it. You don't have that option with a car.

I'm not drunk if I can track stand.
I know I can't be sober if I try
In Munich I almost ran over a drunk bicycle guy because he suddenly swerved into my lane.

I am ok with people killing themselves but it's not OK do something stupid that makes another person kill you. An example would be jumping in front of a train to commit suicide. These things leave deep trauma in the people this happened to. I view drunk cycling in that category.