WHAT IS A BAC CALCULATOR?
A BAC Calculator calculates blood alcohol concentration (BAC) based on your specific characteristics. Blood alcohol concentration is used as a metric of alcohol intoxication for legal or medical purposes. It is used to express a percentage of alcohol in the body.
In the U.S., the law states that you cannot drive with a BAC percentage of .08% and higher. With that said, please keep in mind that in many states you can still get a DUI or DWI at a lower BAC percentage such as .05% or .06%. If police can determine that you are impaired – even though you are lower than a .08%, you can still get a DUI/DWI or reckless driving.
WHAT INFORMATION DOES IT CONSIDER?
- How frequent you drink
- How hungry you are
- The type of alcohol you are drinking
- The size of the drink
- How long you are drinking
It appears that our BAC Calculator is the only one that takes into consideration drinking tolerance, how much you ate and how long you are drinking. These are important factors in determining a more accurate BAC percentage.
HOW IS OUR BAC CALCULATOR DIFFERENT FROM OTHERS?
Nearly all of the alcohol calculators in the market today are based on the Widmark formula. The Widmark formula is a straight line equation and cannot be used prior to the time when maximum absorption has been reached. It does not consider age or height, which can affect your BAC percentages.
The Watson formula was developed after the Widmark formula. It is also a straight line equation but it is a bit more sophisticated in how it figures out the volume of your body in which the alcohol is distributed. Unlike the Widmark formula, it takes into consideration age and height. Because it is a straight line equation, like the Widmark, it cannot be used prior to the time when maximum absorption has been reached. Both Widmark and Watson are straight line equations.
They work fine for times during a drinking episode after the peak absorption (the highest BAC) has been reached, because this part of the profile is linear. However, for times from when the first drink is consumed up to maximum absorption , the profile is a curve and curves requires more sophisticated mathematical equations. Nearly all BAC Calculators on the market today use either the Widmark or Watson model.
The Kinetics model, developed by Jay Godfrey from CG Labs, is one of the most sophisticated formulas in the market. It is the basis upon which we’ve developed our state of the art BAC Calculator. The formulae used in the Kinetics model are based on a combination of previously published and accepted models within the scientific community.
This model, takes into consideration how fast the stomach empties, how quickly alcohol moves into the intestines and finally how long it takes to eliminate alcohol from the body.
The best way to describe the differences is to look at the graph below. You can see how the Widmark and Watson formulas produce a very high BAC the instant you start drinking, thus they are totally inaccurate prior to the time of the actual maximum absorption, as discussed above. In contract, the Kinetics Model accurately depicts a realistic drinking episode.
Who uses the Kinetics formula?
- Belknap County Superior
- Rockingham County Superior
- Merrimack County Superior
- Grafton County Superior
- Concord District
- Nashua District
- Newport District
- Waconia District
- Law Office of Mark Stevens
- Law Office of Leonard Harden
- Schwartz & Schwartz, PA
- Elliott, Jasper, Auten, Shklar & Wellman-Ally
- Elliott & MacLean, LLP
- Thomas W Costello, P.C.