iPhone App as Blood Alcohol Test January 3
The New Year’s Eve party will undoubtedly be only the first party of several that will make 2010 colorful for you. For those of us who are over 21, a party may involve a cocktail or alcoholic beverage or two; sometimes even more, depending on how much fun one is having.
The thing about having fun, though, is that one cannot forget about what happens after. Unfortunately, there have been quite a number of unfortunate accidents in the past that started out with a night of ideally harmless fun. The Colorado Department of Transportation has prepared for such occurrences by helping people find out whether they are sober enough to get behind the wheel or not using one of the more popular gadgets around – the iPhone.
Called ‘R U Buzzed’, this free iPhone app was launched by the Colorado Department of Transportation in early December. Since its launch, the Wall Street Journal reports that the app has been downloaded more than 40,000 times. It works be helping users calculate their blood alcohol levels and then prompting users with a message that says that they should not drive.
Users are asked to enter their weight, gender, the number of hours they have been drinking and the amount of alcoholic beverage – whether that may be wine, beer or vodka – that has been consumed. The app calculates one drink as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor.
Once the app has calculated based on the values given, it will display a blood alcohol content value. The app will then say, “You’re buzzed!” and tell you that “you could be arrested for impaired driving” and that you should “designate a sober driver”. It is also equipped with a GPS feature that helps a user find a cab if there is no one sober enough to drive.
Since this app is from the Colorado Department of Transportation, all estimates are based on Colorado laws and the GPS feature may not work outside of Colorado.
Tags: blood alcohol limit, blood alcohol test, driving under the influence of alcohol, dui, iphone app