Alcohol and drugs
A 150-pound man drinks one 12-ounce can of beer with 5% alcohol. By about how much does that one drink raise his BAC?
- About .02 percent. Correct answer
- About .05 percent.
- About .08 percent.
Why
The manual treats a 12-ounce beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine, 1 1/2 ounces of liquor and a 12-ounce wine cooler as roughly the same dose of alcohol, and for a 150-pound man each of them adds about .02 percent to his BAC. That is why the type of drink does not matter: beer is not a safer choice than whiskey. The distractors are New York's legal thresholds, not the effect of one drink. More than .05 is evidence of impairment and .08 is evidence of intoxication; at about .02 per drink, a few drinks are enough to reach them. Body weight changes the math somewhat, and the manual notes that women usually take longer to clear alcohol. At roughly .02 a drink, it takes only a few to reach the levels at which driving becomes illegal.
Where this comes from
New York State Driver's Manual (MV-21), April 2026 version. The correct answer is About .02 percent.
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