Precedent is Set: Bicycles are Vehicles, and As Such, Are Subject to DUI

I don’t know. I am not in favour of the same penalties for cars and bikes for multiple reasons. For one thing, while I agree that everyone should drive and bike responsibly, the potential for damage riding a bicycle, under the influence or not, is far lower than for any motor vehicle. Which is not to say there’s no potential for serious consequences, but I would guess a cyclist has more potential to injure themselves then anyone else. There continue to be people driving drunk, to everyone’s detriment. If I am on the road at bar closing time, I am worried about the drivers, not the bicycles. If someone was under the influence and was going to unwisely try and get themselves home, I would much rather they did it by bicycle because the potential damage they could do would be less. Also one consequence of a DUI is loss of your driver’s license. It seems to me that if you don’t need a license to ride your bike, you shouldn’t be able to lose your license for anything you’ve done on your bike.
There are many differences in how the law treats bikes vs. cars: safety requirements, taxes, license/registration, age limits. Most of these differences are due to an acknowledgement that bikes do not equal cars in terms of their use, their ease of operation, and the consequences of their missuse. It makes sense to me, and failing to acknowledge that with the DUI laws seems unwise and potentially dangerous. If there are going to people on the road under the influence, I’d rather they be on a bike.

I don’t drink but, I might as well take my car home then my bicycle if I’ve had a few shots.

The guy who hits a drunk biker will feel badly, probably. There will likely be some property damage as well. It’s not that a drunk cyclist poses no risks, it’s that the risks are not nearly the same as drunk driving, and yet the penalty is exactly the same, right down to the point where you can lose your driving privileges even though you weren’t driving. Pedestrians can also get drunk, step into traffic, and cause the same kind of problems as a cyclist. There are laws to address this in the form of public intoxication laws. I could accept some middle ground for cyclists: more serious than just public intoxication, but not as serious as DUI.

And, yes, this is a DC thing. It’s not a national law, but here in North Carolina the same law exists. The laws for DUI used to exclude bicycles (and lawnmowers, and horse riding). In recent years the law was amended, and now biking under the influence is exactly the same offense as driving. There’s still no DUI for drunk on horseback, though.