One in five people have driven their car not knowing if they were over the limit from the night before

ONE IN FIVE people has got behind the wheel of their car unsure if they are still over the limit.

The finding comes from a new AA survey which asked over 6,400 if they had run the risk of driving the morning after a night out in the last 12 months.

In total, 12.45% said they had done it once, 8% said they had done it up to five times and .7% up to ten. .5% of people said that they did it more than 10 times. 78% of people said they had never done it.

In total, 9% of people said they had knowingly been a passenger in a car in which the driver was severely hungover.

Conor Faughnan, AA Director of Consumer Affairs warned drivers not to run the risk.

“While the majority of us would never think of drinking and driving on the same night, we often forget that alcohol can continue to impact on your concentration, reaction times and driving ability into the following day, depending on how much you have consumed.”

The Road Safety Authority says that the calculation is simple:

“It takes your body roughly one hour to get rid of one standard drink.

That’s one hour for a half a pint, or a small glass of wine or a pub measure of spirits, and two hours for a pint to be eliminated from your body. The secret to sobering up is TIME – no amount of coffee, energy drinks, cold showers or breakfast rolls will speed up the process.

Every year, hundreds of people are prosecuted for driving while still over the limit on weekend mornings.

Read: Man (20s) dies in single vehicle crash in Glenageary this morning