Crime & Safety

How Many Drinks Will Get You A DUI? (Chart)

If you insist on driving after a few drinks on New Year's Eve, here's what you should know about how alcohol affects your system—and your criminal record.

Do you know how many drinks you can have before you're in danger of getting a drunken driving violation? 

Pennsylvania State Police, including those at the Moon Township barracks, charged 348 people statewide with drunken driving from Dec. 21 to Dec. 25, according to a statement from Trooper First Class Robin M. Mungo.

A total of 108 alcohol-related crashes occurred throughout the state during the holiday weekend, including one fatality, Mungo said. 

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When police pull drivers over for suspected drunken driving, officers ask them to perform field sobriety tests and to take a breath test to measure Blood Alcohol Content.

A BAC test measures the percentage of alcohol present in a person's bloodstream. Pennsylvania's legal limit is 0.08.

Find out what's happening in North Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

According to the Virginia Tech Alcohol Abuse Prevention website, every 40 minutes, 0.01 percent of alcohol leaves your system. 

Check out the chart in the media portion of this article to see what your limit is. And remember, how you feel also depends on your alcohol tolerance.

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