Possible plans to reduce the drink-drive limit

I am much much worse at driving after a night shift than I am after 1 pint. ban night shifts or enforce all night workers to sleep before they go home or walk home or we could like you know just get a freaking grip.

Anyone remember the 5th Gear episode where they got a guy stoned and he actually performed better, he said the weed make him try to be more careful. LOL.

I suppose as Dolph isn't here yet, he would say, "show statistical evidence that it will help".

This doesn't mean show that 1 pint causes you to be slightly tipsy but that there are a significant amount of fatal road accidents caused by people only slightly over the limit. (not people totally rat arsed and not people sober). Then compare it to the number of people that choke to death on custard creams every year and realise you are just reading DailyMail headlines.
 
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I don't ever drive if I've had anything do drink. Even if it means getting the ex to drive me home! :p


Aswell as the whole not trusting myself (and how much insurance would be with a DR10 on it!) the main reason is that I genuinely don't have a clue how much would be OK, and how much is too much.
 
K.C. Leblanc said:
2. The current method of measuring intoxication very hit and miss. There is no fool proof way to estimate how your blood alcohol level will increase with the amount you drink. It's also very hard to estimate how long until you could drive again.
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I no understand? The current method has proved its accuracy over many years. As for no way of estimating how much you can drink before you go over the the limit: there's an easy answer to that.


The proposed new limit would be the same as many countries in Europe, and is sufficiently low that most people would change from the "one or two pints are OK" to no drinking as all, which is probably a lot more sensible. Some experiments done many years ago showed that certain driver behaviours, especially risk-taking, are significantly altered by alcohol levels below the current limit, but around the proposed new one.

As for the the second test at the station, that's a hang over from the days when the breathalysers in the cars where indicative only. Nowadays they are fully calibrated and evidential in their own right. Given it can be up to an hour before a person can get the second test, it currently is not only possible but relatively common for people to be over the limit for the first test, and yet be below by the second. That means that they were committing an offence, and were a danger to others, but the evidence has literally been flushed away. As long as the chain of calibration remains intact, I have no issue with it.


M
 
Random testing for no reason other than you're out driving late at night or similar? Very bad - we're not Nazi Germany.
 
Meridian said:
Godwin's Law - you lose.



M
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you lose, I mentioned Nazis on the first page. :D

You are also assuming that because 1 pint affects your driving that it also causes accidents. Please prove it. How many accidents a year are caused by people only slightly over the limit? until you know this you can't assume anything. If it only reduces accidents by 50 a year and 5 are fatal but horse riding kills 10 people a year and causes 100 accidents.

It is a balance of freedom and safety for others. (kill yourself for all I care). I quite often enjoy a quick pint and don't want to pay £20 taxi + the overpriced pint for the pleasure.

I like going out for 1 or 2 drinks in the pub or having a drink with a meal, I think the strict drink driving rules are why people tend to stay in and drink cans of larger or go out once a week and get wasted, taxis can cost a fortune.
 
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Jokester said:
I don't have a problem with dropping it to 50mg and I wouldn't have a problem with them removing the right to a second test back at the station as long as they can demonstrate the accuracy of the test machine at the roadside.
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Agreed. I really don't see what the problem with this is unless you must have a tipple. It would also put us in line with most of the EU:

0.8g = UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta
0.5g = Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany Greece, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain
0.4g = Lithuania
0.2g = Norway, Poland, Sweden
Zero tolerance = Estonia, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary
 
starfighter said:
You are also assuming that because 1 pint affects your driving that it also causes accidents. Please prove it. How many accidents a year are caused by people only slightly over the limit? until you know this you can't assume anything. If it only reduces accidents by 50 a year and 5 are fatal but horse riding kills 10 people a year and causes 100 accidents.

It is a balance of freedom and safety for others. (kill yourself for all I care). I quite often enjoy a quick pint and don't want to pay £20 taxi + the overpriced pint for the pleasure.

I like going out for 1 or 2 drinks in the pub or having a drink with a meal, I think the strict drink driving rules are why people tend to stay in and drink cans of larger or go out once a week and get wasted, taxis can cost a fortune.
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Unfortunately, while I agree it is a balance between freedom and safety, the scales come down thoroughly on the safety end. If I was advocating banning people from going out to stop accidents down to drink-driving,you would be right to raise that point, but since I am merely advocating that they drink very little the point is all but irrelevant. You are essentially saying that you want the right to drink up to the point where you ability to drive is unequivocally affected, and being stopped from drinking in the grey area where there is known to be changes to decision making and reflexes is a treat to your liberty. What about the threat to other road users?

Oh, and the horse argument is an old trick: "We shouldn't try to do anything about evil x until we have fixed evil y, which does more damage". Follow that logic to the end conclusion and we just give up all together.

I just tried to find the tests I remember, but I'm struggling to wade through all the reams of pressure group sites and manuals on safe driving. However, essentially it was like this: a group of bus drivers were shown a gap between two cones whilst sober, and asked to estimate whether the bus they were driving (they were sat in at the time) would pass between them. This was tried with various widths and several experienced drivers (all over ten years IIRC). All got it right. They were then given one pint of beer to drink, waited twenty minutes for the alcohol to reach maximum in their blood and the experiment repeated. More than half got wrong, and were prepared to drive through gaps that the bus would not fit between. It's obviously necessary to be careful extrapolating from this, but it illustrates my point: long before you hit the current limit, your driving is affected. You argument sounds like the standard one: it doesn't affect me that much, and I'm only having a couple.


M
 
daz said:
Substitute Nazi Germany for "Authoritarian state". We're supposed to be a liberal free market democracy. Randomly stopping people "just because" isn't in line with those principles.
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But the worst that will happen is that if you are over the limit is that you will be tried, and if found guilty, banned and fined. If you are under you will be left to go on your way. In Nazi Germany you would be hanged if guilty, and they might find reasons to do the same even if innocent. Like if you were Jewish for instance. It's still a stupid exaggeration. Hence the whole point about the invention of Godwin's law: if you can't win an argument without resorting to comparisons to the Nazis in anything that doesn't involve killing people, then your argument at the very least needs working on.


M
 
Meridian said:
But the worst that will happen is that if you are over the limit is that you will be tried, and if found guilty, banned and fined.
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The police have no right to stop someone unless they have reasonable suspicion to believe that they're doing something wrong. That's the way it should stay.

Civil liberties are already being swept under the carpet under the name of "safety" and "security".
 
daz said:
The police have no right to stop someone unless they have reasonable suspicion to believe that they're doing something wrong. That's the way it should stay.

Civil liberties are already being swept under the carpet under the name of "safety" and "security".
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I can stop any motorist I like to check their documents. I don't need any suspicion that they are doing anything wrong.
 
Meridian said:
What about the threat to other road users?
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This is what it boils down to, whether it's drink, other drugs, lack of sleep or any other activity that impacts driving performance it doesn't matter.

Studies have also shown that just one drink will on average double the reaction time of drivers.
 
Meridian said:
Unfortunately, while I agree it is a balance between freedom and safety, the scales come down thoroughly on the safety end. If I was advocating banning people from going out to stop accidents down to drink-driving,you would be right to raise that point, but since I am merely advocating that they drink very little the point is all but irrelevant. You are essentially saying that you want the right to drink up to the point where you ability to drive is unequivocally affected, and being stopped from drinking in the grey area where there is known to be changes to decision making and reflexes is a treat to your liberty. What about the threat to other road users?

Oh, and the horse argument is an old trick: "We shouldn't try to do anything about evil x until we have fixed evil y, which does more damage". Follow that logic to the end conclusion and we just give up all together.

I just tried to find the tests I remember, but I'm struggling to wade through all the reams of pressure group sites and manuals on safe driving. However, essentially it was like this: a group of bus drivers were shown a gap between two cones whilst sober, and asked to estimate whether the bus they were driving (they were sat in at the time) would pass between them. This was tried with various widths and several experienced drivers (all over ten years IIRC). All got it right. They were then given one pint of beer to drink, waited twenty minutes for the alcohol to reach maximum in their blood and the experiment repeated. More than half got wrong, and were prepared to drive through gaps that the bus would not fit between. It's obviously necessary to be careful extrapolating from this, but it illustrates my point: long before you hit the current limit, your driving is affected. You argument sounds like the standard one: it doesn't affect me that much, and I'm only having a couple.


M
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I agree that it likely makes you a worse driver even if you can't tell, in fact I am almost sure. And also agree that just because other things aren't perfect doesn't mean we shouldn't increase road safety. I am just stating there is no point making laws so strict that you start to get diminishing returns.

You make it zero tolerance and we now all have to get taxis everywhere, 100s more people being arrested, massive increase in costs of police, for what? 5 people died in 1 year that had had a drink and half of those accidents probably would have happened anyway kind of thing.

so we saved 2 people, spent millions extra on police, and now require double the number of taxi drivers, massive pita for everyone. how about we just grow a pair.

Why do you want to be like Europe just for the sake of it. I am actually pro EU, but I don't see the point of conformism for conformisms sake.

Life is risky, get over it! and as far as those risks go this isn't even one. Worry about being struck by lightning.
 
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•Random breath testing of motorists
GOOD
•Removing the right to a second breathalyser test at a police station
VERY BAD, (open to legal technicality)
•A 20mg alcohol limit for inexperienced drivers
VERY GOOD
•A new offence of driving with an illegal substance in the bloodstream at levels deemed impairing
VERY GOOD!
 
Is there any decent evidence supporting the view that reducing the limit will reduce the number of accidents involving alcohol? No? What's the point of this, exactly, then?

A zero limit is even more stupid. Had a tiramisu did we, sir? That's six points. Used mouthwash did we, sir? Oh dear, dear.
 
Meridian said:
I just tried to find the tests I remember, but I'm struggling to wade through all the reams of pressure group sites and manuals on safe driving. However, essentially it was like this: a group of bus drivers were shown a gap between two cones whilst sober, and asked to estimate whether the bus they were driving (they were sat in at the time) would pass between them. This was tried with various widths and several experienced drivers (all over ten years IIRC). All got it right. They were then given one pint of beer to drink, waited twenty minutes for the alcohol to reach maximum in their blood and the experiment repeated. More than half got wrong, and were prepared to drive through gaps that the bus would not fit between. It's obviously necessary to be careful extrapolating from this, but it illustrates my point: long before you hit the current limit, your driving is affected.
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It's well established that drivers are affected below the limit, well below, in fact. What there isn't is any good evidence that this is actually a significant cause of accidents. The fact is that most accidents don't occur because of a failure of reaction speed; they happen because one or other driver wasn't paying attention at that moment in time.
 
Lots of people in this thread seem to be saying that roadside breathlyzers are reliable

Does nobody remember the story a while back in the US where some people accused of driving over the limit requested the source code of the analyzer and got it checked out?

It was terrible!
Readings are Not Averaged Correctly: When the software takes a series of readings, it first averages the first two readings. Then, it averages the third reading with the average just computed. Then the fourth reading is averaged with the new average, and so on
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from http://www.dwi.com/new-jersey/state-v-chun/

With that particular machine in the field it would pass people over the limit as legal AND people under the limit as over AND pass calibration (usually)

Can we be sure that the machines our police use in the field are coded better?
 
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