Calculating BAC

Blood Alcohol Concentration, often shortened to BAC, tells you how much alcohol is currently in your bloodstream. Knowing how to figure out your BAC can matter in plenty of everyday moments, whether you’re deciding if it’s safe to drive home from a bar or restaurant or you’ve already been arrested for Driving Under the Influence (DUI). When police stop someone for a suspected DUI, they often ask the driver to complete field sobriety tests. These might include balancing on one leg, tracking a moving light with your eyes, or walking heel-to-toe along a straight line. If you struggle with these tasks, the officer may suspect that drugs or alcohol are affecting you and ask for additional testing, such as a breath test or a chemical test using blood or urine.

What Is Blood Alcohol Concentration?

Every time you drink an alcoholic beverage, alcohol moves into your bloodstream, and the amount circulating in your blood climbs higher. In most states, including Pennsylvania, the legal limit for adults sits at 0.08 percent. Drive above that number and you risk a DUI charge. A BAC test measures exactly how much alcohol is present in your blood, so a reading of 0.08 means there are 0.08 grams of alcohol in every 100 milliliters of blood. If you’re worried about a charge, a Johnstown criminal lawyer can walk you through what these numbers mean for your case.

For anyone below the legal drinking age, Pennsylvania enforces a zero-tolerance rule when it comes to underage DUI. That means a BAC of just 0.02 percent or above triggers an automatic DUI charge, leaving very little room for error.

What Factors Affect BAC?

• Gender: Women often register a higher BAC than men after drinking the same amount of alcohol. The main reason is that women generally have a smaller body frame than men.
• Body Fat: A higher percentage of body fat can push your BAC up. That’s because fatty tissue doesn’t soak up alcohol as well as other parts of the body.
• Empty Stomach: Skipping food before you drink can lead to a higher BAC than someone who ate a meal alongside their drinks. Food in your stomach slows how quickly alcohol gets absorbed, which keeps your BAC lower.
• Body Size: Smaller, lighter people tend to have a higher BAC than those who are larger and heavier. With less body mass, alcohol has fewer places to spread out, so it becomes more concentrated.

If alcohol-related charges have you searching for a Johnstown federal attorney, understanding these factors can help you make sense of your test results.

Determining BAC

To get a rough idea of your BAC, you first need to know how much alcohol sits inside common drinks. One standard drink equals a single 5-ounce glass of wine, one 1.5-ounce shot of liquor, or a 12-ounce beer. Wine usually carries 15 to 20 percent alcohol, liquor falls somewhere between 30 and 50 percent, and beer holds roughly 4 to 4.5 percent. A Long Island Iced Tea is a good example of how quickly this adds up, since blending five different types of alcohol pushes its content to around 22 percent. A Johnstown criminal lawyer can explain how these details may surface during a DUI case.

Working out your BAC means gathering a few key pieces of information: how long you’ve been drinking, how many ounces of alcohol you’ve had, the alcohol percentage in each drink, and your body weight. Widmark’s Formula gives you a way to estimate the number:

BAC = (ounces of alcohol consumed * 5.14 / weight in pounds * gender constant) – .015 * hours since drinking began.

The gender constant used for alcohol distribution is 0.66 for women and 0.73 for men.

Take this example: imagine you’re a 150-pound adult woman who finished two 12-ounce beers over the past two hours…

% BAC = (1.20 x 5.14 / 150 x 0.66) – 0.015 x 2

% BAC = (6.168 / 99) – 0.03

% BAC = 0.062 – 0.03

% BAC = 0.032 (which sits below the 0.08% legal limit for adults and shows that you are not legally intoxicated)

Even with a number like this in hand, a Johnstown federal attorney can confirm how the law applies to your situation.

Do This When Your BAC Is Too High

Keep in mind that the law requires you to take a BAC test when asked. Turning down a blood or breath test brings an automatic license suspension along with an extra criminal charge on top of everything else. If you end up arrested for DUI, reach out right away for the help of a seasoned attorney who handles cases throughout Cambria County and beyond.

When you’re facing Driving Under the Influence charges, you deserve guidance from an experienced and well-informed Johnstown federal attorney. At Logue Law Group, we’ve successfully managed a long list of DUI cases. Our reach extends across Johnstown, West Virginia, and Ohio. Get in touch with us today to schedule an initial consultation by calling 412.387.6901 or visiting our website to start the conversation.