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Uh-oh, here’s old Preacher Dave up on the pulpit again, banging his fist, thumping the Hurt Report, and giving us another boring sermon about devil rum. Well, okay, I’ve been accused of being a little preachy, but my job is to help you reduce the risks. I don’t dream up the hazards out of thin air; I become aware of them through personal experience, accident reports, motorcycling war stories, conversations with accident victims, and, yes, statistics. According to the numbers, motorcycling has gradually been getting safer over the years, except for one big problem that isn’t going away; the involvement of alcohol in fatal accidents. It’s a serious enough problem that I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t mention it from time to time. It’s time.

I got my rude awakening to the booze problem when I bumped into the Assistant Coroner (AC) at a helmet law hearing in Olympia a few years ago. He described his job as scraping up the remains of the victims Medic One couldn’t save. In other words, after the emergency medical technicians (EMTs) have determined that they can’t save an injured motorist at the scene of an accident, the Coroner’s office sends out a crew with a van to pick up the cadaver and determine the cause of death. Since I seldom get to talk face to face with someone who "scrapes up" dead motorcyclists, I pumped him for details.

Up to that conversation, I had assumed that the typical accident scenario involving alcohol and bikes was a drunk driver running into a sober motorcyclist. The AC set me straight. He figured that about two of every three dead motorcyclists they bring in have alcohol in their blood. There's more, the AC informed me that they could predict pretty well which cadavers would have a significant amount of alcohol in their blood, based on the crash scenario.

In addition to hauling away the corpse, the crew from the coroner’s office analyzes the scene and take measurements. Sober riders tend to leave skid marks, drunk riders tend to smash into immovable objects such as bridge abutments and power poles without any attempts to take evasive action. The drunks also usually crash at speeds roughly twice the posted limit. So if the speed limit is 35, the crash results often indicate a 70-mph impact. If there aren’t any skid marks, the motorcyclist/cadaver is likely to have a high blood alcohol content (BAC) of perhaps 0.17 or 0.20—well above the legal limit.

"Would a mandatory helmet law reduce the number of fatalities?" I asked.

The AC looked me straight in the eye as he composed his response. "A good helmet would certainly protect the brain," he said," but that won’t help the rider much when the head comes off the body." He was being serious. I got a little queasy thinking about times I had ridden after a drink or two.

Knowing that "safetycrats" are often prejudiced against motorcyclists, I thought maybe the AC was feeding me a political agenda rather than honest statistics. So I started digging into the numbers. According to the Hurt Report, drunken riders accounted for 10 percent of accidents and 41 percent of fatalities. But haven’t the motorcycle fatality rates dropped a lot since the Hurt Report came out in 1980?

Yes, the U.S. fatality rates have dropped. According to NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts, the average U.S. motorcyclist fatality rate in 1985 was 8.4 per 10,000 registered bikes. By 1998, the rate had been reduced to 5.9. That sounds pretty good until you compare motorcycles to cars and trucks.

Fatality Rate, 1998

Well, the motorcycle fatality rates look pretty bad, but what role does alcohol play in the numbers? Are we talking drunk drivers running into sober riders, or drunk riders doing it to themselves?

According to the 1995 NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts, motorcycle operators involved in fatal crashes had higher intoxication rates than any other type of motor vehicle driver. Of the fatally injured motorcycle operators, 30 percent were legally intoxicated. An additional 11.5 percent had been drinking but weren’t legally intoxicated.

We could go on and on about which states have the greatest fatality rates, what time of day is worse, and how the rates compare for single-vehicle crashes vs. collisions, but the important message in all of this is that a big share of motorcycle fatalities involve riding after drinking.

Many motorcycle fatalities involve riding after drinking.

Once alcohol gets into the stomach, it quickly enters the bloodstream and gets pumped throughout the body, from head to toe.. Alcohol first acts as a sedative in the brain, relaxing mental functions such as inhibition, concentration, and judgment. The first effect is a happy feeling, caused by loss of inhibitions. It also degrades physical functions such as speech, hearing, pain, coordination, and balance. As more alcohol is absorbed, there is a degradation of judgment, self-control, and muscle coordination. If the concentration of alcohol in the blood continues to increase, the person will experience confusion then fall into a stupor. (Figure 1)

Down the Drain

The body eliminates alcohol by oxidizing or burning it in the liver, so the amount of alcohol in the body at any moment depends upon how much was ingested and when. The percentage of alcohol in the bloodstream also depends upon body weight. Heavier people have a larger blood volume. One final point; not everyone is affected the same by the same concentration of alcohol. Alcohol’s effect on any individual depends upon that person’s sensitivity to booze. In other words, after four drinks one rider may be almost fully functional, while another rider may be falling on his lips.

I should mention that drugs other than alcohol, including both illegal drugs and over the counter medications such as cold and allergy pills, are also implicated in accidents. Drugs and medications often interact with alcohol to heighten its effects. When you’re taking any medications that cause drowsiness, it’s not smart to get on a bike. And you should especially avoid combining alcohol with other medications.

Alcohol may be a social advantage for people trying to overcome shyness at parties, but it does all the wrong things to someone trying to operate a motorcycle. I often underscore the need for motorcyclists to make good decisions and their ability to maneuver a motorcycle accurately. It should be obvious that alcohol diminishes both judgment and skills. After one or two drinks, is a rider capable of judging his or her own condition to operate a motorcycle? Even if control skills have not yet been affected, would a rider have sufficient perception and awareness to adjust speed for conditions or to choose the correct evasive maneuver to avoid a collision? The sober conclusion is that even one or two drinks probably skew a rider’s opinion of his or her ability to handle a motorcycle.

Okay, so maybe you’re "just drinking beer." How much alcohol can there be in a beer anyway? Let’s dabble in some typical drinks (Figure 2). There is slightly less than 0.5 oz of pure alcohol in one shot of whiskey, one mixed cocktail, one glass of wine, or one can of beer. Specifically, a 1-oz shot of 90 proof bourbon contains 0.45 oz of alcohol. A 4-oz glass of Burgundy at 11 percent contains 0.44 oz of alcohol. And a 12 oz lager beer at 3.2 percent actually contains 0.384 oz of alcohol. So, okay, the 3.2 percent beer has slightly less alcohol. But whether it’s two beers or two shots of bourbon straight up, two drinks add up to almost 1 oz of alcohol.

Is alcohol really a serious problem? A lot of riders have stopped off for a few drinks during a ride and managed to wobble on to the finish without crashing. I’ve been to motorcycle club meetings held at taverns at which almost everyone sucked down a few beers before the ride home. I’ve seen bikers fortify soda with a shot of whiskey right out of the saddlebag, and then continue a poker run without a wobble. I can’t remember any BMW rally that didn’t have a beer garden or at least a keg on tap. So, if all these folks can complete the ride after a few beers or maybe a couple nips of Jim B., is there really a problem mixing alcohol and motorcycles? Fair enough. Let’s see if my personal knowledge parallels the statistics.

A few years ago, I attended a presentation by "Slider" Gilmore, a hard-core biker who is also an EMT. Slider was teaching a seminar on handling a motorcycle accident. He forewarned us that his presentation would include some photographs of gory accidents, both to educate us to the types of injuries to expect and also to expose us to the shock and revulsion we would have to suppress at the scene of a bad accident.

While the main point of Slider’s class was the importance of getting EMTs to the scene quickly, one background theme kept repeating itself throughout the presentation; booze. Slider ticked off one biker brother after another now lying underground "pushing up daisies," as a result of riding after partying. Slider even showed us a number of "before" photos of proud owners of customized bikes and "after" photos taken later, after the drunken riders had crashed.

The loss of so many friends moved Slider to give up alcohol entirely. For me, the message was clear that riding after drinking does heighten the risks of a nasty accident. Those riders who have managed to wobble home after a club meeting at the tavern were lucky. Following that presentation, I adhered to a strict rule of never drinking before or during a ride.

There have been many studies around the world comparing BAC to actual impairment. For example, The British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA) conducted a study that suggests impairment begins at a BAC of 0.035 percent, or about two drinks. The BCMA further suggests that many people would lose enough sufficient driving skills to be a "menace on the highway" at a BAC of 0.05 percent, or about three drinks within one hour.

Although different people react differently to alcohol, most folks burn off about 0.015 percent per hour per 150 pounds of body weight, say one drink per hour. Nothing speeds up the process of burning off alcohol. Coffee might help you pee more, but it won’t help you see more. A cold shower might make you shiver, but it won’t speed up the liver. All you can do to sober up is to wait for the liver to do its thing.

What all this stuff about percentages and ounces and BACs and hours boils down to is this: keeping BAC within safe limits means no more than one drink per hour. It’s best if you can avoid alcohol during a ride but if you’re addicted, at least limit your BAC. Remember that biker who fortified his soda pop with whiskey during a ride? Well, it may have been poor judgment, it was probably illegal, and it certainly sustains a bad image, but one shot of whiskey is within the "safe" BAC limit.

Let’s assume for a moment that you and I are smart enough to separate the demon rum from motorcycling, but our friend Buddy Biker can’t hold his booze. Does it matter to us that Buddy has lost his license, nips from a flask during a ride, and occasionally wanders down the wrong side of the road? Well, it should matter. Even if we don’t know the guy personally, the accident and fatality statistics have a direct effect on our wallets through motorcycle insurance rates and health insurance premiums. If we ride with him, Buddy could involve us in a crash. And if he’s a friend, we ought to care about him enough to help prevent a fatal accident.

The trouble is that booze has been such an integral part of many biker events that we’re going to have to get really pushy to change old attitudes. The old attitudes are: "I can handle it. A real biker can corner faster after a few beers; I’ll sober up when I get a little wind in my face." " I’ve had a few accidents, but being drunk kept me from getting injured." " If we can’t have an open keg at the rally, why bother to go?"

If we want to reduce motorcycle fatalities, the single most important issue is to make riding after drinking a motorcycling taboo. What’s important to remember is that the decision not to ride while under the influence needs to be made before the first drink goes down the hatch.

The decision not to ride while drunk needs to be made before the first drink goes down the hatch.

Wise riders who want more than one drink per hour choose either an alcohol-free drink or hand their bike keys to a sober friend. Smart group leaders avoid stopping at cocktail lounges during a ride. Clever rally organizers do not allow an unattended beer keg. Responsible party hosts monitor the booze being consumed and make arrangements for alternate transportation for those who can’t control their urge to get plastered.

The MSF has a videotape titled Riding Straight for use in MSF courses. The tape is also available to anyone else for showing to motorcycle groups. The twelve-minute video is an excellent overview of the hazards of riding while under the influence, and the presentation is entertaining enough to help keep the subject from becoming another boring sermon.

The concentration of alcohol in a person’s system is usually measured as a percentage of blood, or "Blood Alcohol Concentration" (BAC). Drunk driving laws used to specify driving while intoxicated (DWI) or driving under the influence (DUI) to be at 0.10 percent, or one part alcohol for every thousand parts of blood. But lately the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been encouraging states to reduce their DWI limits. Today, in most states, the limit is 0.08 percent. Many states (including Washington) have stricter laws for minors, with limits at a mere 0.02 percent.

For example, in Washington State, the DUI limit for adults is currently 0.08 percent, with fines starting at $350, plus twenty-four hours in the slammer, plus license suspension for up to 90 days. The fine, jail time, and license suspension escalate for higher BAC or for repeat offenders. A BAC of 0.15 or more can net a fine up to $5,000, plus up to 12 months in jail. If it’s a third offense within 7 years, the minimum fine is $1,500 plus a mandatory 120 days in the slammer.

And it’s even more severe for minors. A rider under age twenty-one loses their license for 90 days if nabbed with a BAC of only 0.02 percent (maybe two beers), and faces the possibility of heavy fines plus jail time.

None of the above costs include court fees, expenses of a lawyer or counselor, huge insurance increases, damage to the bike during towing and storage, or bus fare. If the DUI occurs on top of a suspended license, the bike may be seized.

If you want to read all the details about fines, jail time, license suspensions, you can access them on the state web site. Go to www.leg.wa.gov/RCW  and search for RCW 46.61.502.

David Hough is a long-time motorcyclist and journalist. His work has appeared in numerous motorcycle publications, but he is best known for the monthly skills series “Proficient Motorcycling” in Motorcycle Consumer News, which has been honored by special awards from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. Selected columns were edited into a book “Proficient Motorcycling” published by Bowtie Press. He is also the author of “Driving A Sidecar Outfit”. A pocket handbook, “Street Strategies” is also on the market now.

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