Your Thoughts On The Proposed New Drink Driving Limits

Originally Posted by HSTDriver

It's really not that big an issue to go without a drink, if it bothers people that much, get a cab, or walk, or get a mate or partner to drive.

It's the sensible way of doing it but it raises a big grey area on a zero-tolerance policy, when do you pick the car up?

My mate thought he was fine at 11:00am the next day after a good brekki. As he says "I might as well have driven home absolutely steaming, I'd have got the same punishment and saved the taxi fare" If he's still over the current limit at 11:00 the next morning a zero-tolerance approach could keep you out of your car for a good 24 hours.

Yes, They Should Be Reduced To The Proposed Limits.

There are a fair few idiots regularly driving with mind altering substances other then booze - how many would pass a breathalizer but be high on pot or any one of several other drugs ? Pity there isn't a roadside test for those. We have a good law that is well proven. What we need is enforcement, but while the police are content to distort statistics and have safety camera teams parking on slip roads and grass verges nothing will improve. I wonder if this debate should really be widened to road safety in general ? The standard of driving, the integrity of the vehicles on the road and general enforcement of EXISTING regulation. What point is there in making tough laws while the irresponsible can do as they please. All this achieves is yet more restriction for sensible people and a free for all for the epsilon semi morons.

The problem is our all or nothing approach...

As you sip a drink you go from completely safe to drive to dangerous drunk driver (in the laws eyes)

Either a multi tier system which goes from a verbal warning through to a jail term.

Or, imho a much better solution, stop relying on blood alchohol level to indicate ability to drive, develop a roadside reaction and responce test that can be used to determine if you are capable of responding to hazards and respoding fast enough.

This would then catch drink, drugged, over-tired, and generally impaired drivers, it would also catch those people who are so obviously unsafe to be driving, but never commit an offence under our current system. (The one who pulled out of a junction 20 yards ahead of you when you were doing 60 down that main road, for example)

Originally Posted by ninjadwarf

Or, imho a much better solution, stop relying on blood alchohol level to indicate ability to drive, develop a roadside reaction and responce test that can be used to determine if you are capable of responding to hazards and respoding fast enough.

This would then catch drink, drugged, over-tired, and generally impaired drivers, it would also catch those people who are so obviously unsafe to be driving, but never commit an offence under our current system. (The one who pulled out of a junction 20 yards ahead of you when you were doing 60 down that main road, for example)

Good idea, but think how many unsafe
drivers would get caught! They'd be swamped!

IMHO... Total ban for me.
The stories I was told growing up by my fire fighter father of drunk drivers and the lives they destroy were enough to make me take a cab home, and not drive the next day after a skin full.
I would rather not risk it!

I've yet to meet an elderly person fearful of going out at night incase they get hit by a drunk driver.

Leave it as it is I say. Its a good law, long established and largely well understood by most people.

Originally Posted by 29alfa

IMHO... Total ban for me.
The stories I was told growing up by my fire fighter father of drunk drivers and the lives they destroy were enough to make me take a cab home, and not drive the next day after a skin full.

Should the existing law not protect you against these drunk drivers destroying lives?
Why would a total ban work better than the current limits?

Originally Posted by 29alfa

I would rather not risk it!

Us lot are alright, it's the other bu99ers out there with no regard for the current law that are the danger.

Originally Posted by David Jarrett

Its a good law, long established and largely well understood by most people.

Is it?

Do you know the point where illegal comes legal ?And I don't mean numbers on a piece of paper, I mean actually sitting there with a drink in your hand.

Many people think a pint of normal strength lager is roughly worth 1 unit of alcohol. It is in fact more than double that.

A glass of wine is about 2 units, again, double what many people consider it to be.

A 35ml measure of spirit is about 1.5 units. Almost as high as a pint of lager.

It's all too easy to go over the limit with our vague law, best do the sensible thing and don't drink and drive at all.

Very true HST, (although personally I have always seen half a beer or a small glass of wine as 1 unit ) However dealing in absolutes presents problems: When is zero really zero - 12 hours later ? 24 hours later ? after 3 glasses of wine or a skinful ? A zero limit or a limit close to zero would criminalise people who are not impaired in any way.

Tolerance, reason and rationality should be the goal. Even the most precisly engineered product has a tolerance beit nano metres, microns or +/- a country mile. What we have is sound and well proven and has a reasonable tolerance - What we need is to enforce what we have. This isn't done because it costs more money to have policemen patroling the highway that it does to stick a "safety" camera on the main road in to town.

At the moment if I'm driving the most I'd drink would be a small glass of wine but only with a meal. If I'm not eating I only drink soft drinks. I would have no problem with zero-tolerance - that's what I voted for.

Originally Posted by HSTDriver

Is it?

Do you know the point where illegal comes legal ?And I don't mean numbers on a piece of paper, I mean actually sitting there with a drink in your hand.

Many people think a pint of normal strength lager is roughly worth 1 unit of alcohol. It is in fact more than double that.

A glass of wine is about 2 units, again, double what many people consider it to be.

A 35ml measure of spirit is about 1.5 units. Almost as high as a pint of lager.

It's all too easy to go over the limit with our vague law, best do the sensible thing and don't drink and drive at all.

Yes, and everyone reacts differently to the specified units because we're all different shapes, sizes and compositions, whether we've had something to eat before we go out, how much water we've drank in the last 12 hours.

Any law, be it an allowance or a zero tolerance law will be limited by ambiguities like this. How long does it take to get back to zero after a skin-full? 8 hours? 12 hours? 24 hours? Again, everyone's different.

To me, dropping the limits would serve no purpose because they can't enforce the current limits - people are still out there drink driving. I've been in the car with a lad who regularly gets an 8 pack down him driving to a party so he's nicely set up when he gets there. I can't see how a zero tolerance law would stop him if the current limits don't, it would just cause an extra headache to the already overstretched police force.

... and isn't being tired just as bad? How come there's no charge for tired driving? I've done it myself, feel yourself nodding off on early starts at 4:00am, open the window, turn the music up, anything to stay awake but pull over and get some shut-eye.

Originally Posted by Dibby

... and isn't being tired just as bad? How come there's no charge for tired driving? I've done it myself, feel yourself nodding off on early starts at 4:00am, open the window, turn the music up, anything to stay awake but pull over and get some shut-eye.

We've all done it. Shift workers have it as a part of life. I've raised this argument myself (apparently being tired can be as bad as being twice the drink drive limit ) but there's no charge for it. Double standards? Perhaps it is.

Maybe there should be a catch all charge of being 'unfit to drive'

'being unfit to drive' would be the sensible way of doing it yet the current police/ government thinking is that sticking a camera van on a motorway bridge is the best way to punish 'bad' driving!

In the days when it was all done by patrol cars they could pick up on sleepy drivers, maybe let the bloke in the big sales rep car get away with doing 80-90mph and go after people who are the real danger on the roads.

Originally Posted by Dibby

In the days when it was all done by patrol cars they could pick up on sleepy drivers, maybe let the bloke in the big sales rep car get away with doing 80-90mph and go after people who are the real danger on the roads.

In my experience, many Sales reps are a real danger on the roads. Tailgating, cutting across lanes, driving whilst on mobiles, eating, reading maps, reading diary/filofax etc

Sorry to divert the thread slightly, but no matter how many miles a year someone drives, an idiot is still an idiot