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Comment by moffkalast | Hacker News Reader

> Going out for drinks? Bike.

As long as you don't actually drink anything hah. Everyone's a designated driver with bikes.

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

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.

I'm not drunk if I can track stand.

I know I can't be sober if I try

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.

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.

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.

Cycling drunk is technically illegal, but often unenforced in the Netherlands. You should see the thousands of obviously 'drunk' people leaving festivals on bikes, under the eyes of the police.

Correct. Police prefer people drunk cycling than drunk in the car.

You have to be careful about where you park you bike around drunk people. I locked my bike up in Leidseplein once, and when I came back, somebody had barfed on my bike seat!

achenet: The officer will direct you to the separate bike lanes for Ketamine and LSD.

It's okay officer, I'm not drunk, I just had a bunch of ketamine and some LSD.

Fun fact: you can lose your car driving license if you are drunk when cycling. But you can't lose it if you don't have one!

Can someone easily renounce their drivers license in advance?

In the Netherlands, that is not the case. The worst they can do is give you a fine.

We had a friend who got into an minor accident (fall really) after drinking and cycling. He was wearing a helmet and he’s become a helmet evangelist.

ANother anecdote from The Netherlands: when we go out to drink we go by bike so everyone can drink! Worst case scenario: you bike there and walk back again. You can't take a car with you when you're walking.

Personally, while drunk, I lose the ability to walk straight before I lose the ability to bike.

And presumably you can walk with your bike.

It's not enforced in The Netherlands. Better to have drunk people on bikes than in cars.

You can actually get "biking under the influence" tickets in some places.

Do you get too drunk to ride a bicycle every time you go out for drinks?

The good thing is, "too drunk to ride a bike" happens much earlier than "too drunk". And while with a car some push it and still drive drunk (sometimes with horrendous consequences), a bike has this safety mechanism where they simply cannot be ridden when drunk.

A bike also has the safety mechanism of not being 3000 pounds and the inability to easily drive through the walls of buildings

It's as if all bikes came with their own tamper proof drunk driver detector and drunk usage preventer: a built-in continuous driver balance testing system, even more reliable than a breathalyzer, and able to detect all kinds of other drugs too.

Drunk tricycle driving and bikes with training wheels: now those much more inherently dangerous problems!

Somehow the bycicles in Germany seem to lack such mechanism, given the state of some examples I have witnessed.

That just isn’t true. I’ve cycled while extremely drunk on multiple occasions (which, to be clear, I think is a bad idea).

I am a practiced cyclist and an accomplished drinker, and I can tell you that I am able to operate a bicycle deeper into intoxication than I can reliably walk.

When I've cycled to work and gone for drinks afterwards, I'll leave my bike at the office and pick it up the next day, using public transport to get there.

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