How many ppm of alcohol is acceptable in 2021

How ppm is measured

The traffic police officer who stopped you will ask you to breathe into the tube, and the air analyzer will show how much alcohol is in the exhaled air. You may disagree with the results and request that you be referred for a medical examination.

In a medical facility, specialists will measure the amount of alcohol in the exhaled air. The bar to consider you drunk is still the same - 0.16 mg per liter. If the first test is positive, you will need to breathe into the tube again after 15–20 minutes.

A police officer can also insist on a medical examination if he wants to clarify the data. You cannot refuse: there is administrative responsibility for this.

How drunk driving is punished

Administrative responsibility

For drunk driving - a fine of 30 thousand and deprivation of a driver's license for a period of 1, 5-2 years.
For drunk driving and without a license (if they are not yet or have already been taken away) - arrest for a period of 10 to 15 days or 30 thousand fine, if a person cannot be arrested (applies to pregnant women, minors, disabled persons of the first and second groups, military, law enforcement officers and women with children under 14).
For refusal to undergo a medical examination on suspicion of intoxication - a fine of 30 thousand and deprivation of a driver's license for a period of 1, 5-2 years.
For refusing a medical examination in the absence of a driver's license - arrest for a period of 10 to 15 days or a fine of 30 thousand if the offender cannot be arrested.
For drinking alcohol after an accident or stopping a car by a policeman - a fine of 30 thousand and deprivation of a driver's license for a period of 1, 5-2 years.

In all cases, the car will be detained and sent to an impound parking lot. If you allow a drunk person to drive your car, you will be fined 30 thousand and your license will be taken away for 1, 5-2 years.

Criminal liability

If the driver does not learn the lesson the first time or becomes the culprit of an accident, in which there will be dead or injured, he will have to answer within the framework of the Criminal Code. In June 2019, the punishment for such crimes was increased.

For a drunken traffic accident that caused serious harm to human health - up to five years of forced labor or from three to seven years in prison.
For an accident in which a person died - imprisonment for a term of five to 12 years. Previously, the maximum sentence was four years.
For the death of two or more people - imprisonment for a term of eight to 15 years. Earlier it was about 4-9 years of imprisonment.
For repeated drunk driving or refusal of a medical examination - a fine of 200-300 thousand rubles (as an option - in the amount of the convicted person's income for 1-2 years), or up to two years in prison, or up to 480 hours of compulsory work, or up to two years of forced labor.

How much can you drink before driving

Not at all. The ppm rate was introduced so as not to bring drivers to justice by mistake: due to an error in measurements or a small concentration of alcohol in the exhaled air after kefir or kvass.

Approximately 0.3 g of alcohol per liter will be in the blood of a person weighing 60–70 kg after 40 ml of vodka, 330 ml of beer or 150 ml of wine.

But that doesn't mean you can have a drink and drive. Alcohol affects concentration in different ways, so driving even after a small dose of alcohol can be dangerous for you and those around you. It is not easy to calculate how long alcohol will take from the body. Too many factors are involved here: weight, age, nutrition, personality, metabolic rate, and so on.

Scientist Eric Widmark suggested that the rate of elimination of alcohol from the body is approximately 0.15 ppm per hour. However, modern researchers believe that such calculations have a large error.

How does alcohol produced in the body affect the readings?

A small amount of alcohol is produced by the body itself. Usually its level does not exceed 0.1 ppm. With some diseases - diabetes mellitus, hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, disorders of the gastrointestinal tract - the amount of endogenous alcohol in the body may increase. It is also often influenced by stress or high-carb foods.

The researchers believe that these concentrations are still too low to be of any value to the motorist. But if you additionally drink, even a little, then the concentration of alcohol in the body will exceed the permissible value. This is one of the reasons why you should not drink alcohol before driving.

However, there are cases when the content of endogenous alcohol due to the disease was really high. But not only the breathalyzer reacts to this. The person really felt drunk with all the accompanying symptoms. Therefore, it is impossible to drive in such a state - no matter how the alcohol turned out to be in the body. Such situations are not so common, so the average motorist should not blame everything on endogenous alcohol.

To understand whether it is possible to get behind the wheel, it is better to use a breathalyzer.