Question: How is a person's blood-alcohol concentration calculated? Are many people arrested for DUI?
Answer: The basic formula for estimating a person's blood-alcohol concentration comes from The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a federal government agency. Each drink in their calculation assumes a volume of .54 ounces of alcohol (one shot of distilled spirits, a glass of wine, or 12 ounces of beer).
The Department of Justice estimates that over 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol (for the latest year data was available). The arrest rate works out to one arrest for every 139 licensed drivers in the United States.
Everyone reacts differently to alcohol. For some, even two bottles of beer can impair a person’s driving skills as the effects of alcoholic drinks vary greatly because the rate of absorption would be affected by factors such as weight, amount of fat tissue, and stomach contents.