Is zero tolerance the answer to our drink driving problem?

There is no single answer to the very serious issue of drink-driving but zero-tolerance is NOT the answer.

I remember when there was a real change in social attitude. It must be about 25 years ago when a guy in our office, who needed to drive for his work, got caught and got banned. The old attitude of “that’s bad luck” had gone and the new response was “well you were stupid to have driven when you’d been out drinking”.

If we are going to reduce the number of deaths and casualties from drink-driving then we need to recognise where the heart of the problem lies. In 2006 nearly 50% of all breath test failures following injury road accidents where in the age range 17-29 and this included 2,721 young men but only 465 young women. Doesn’t this tell us where we need to focus the campaign?

But we also need to know:

1) What time of day are people caught? Is there really evidence that driving the morning after is a serious problem?

2) What level of alcohol is recorded in drivers who are over the limit? I believe that the real problem is drivers who are substantially over the limit and reducing the limit won’t make any difference to what they do.

3) What level of alcohol is recorded in drivers who are responsible for accidents but who are not over the limit? In other words are people causing accidents by driving around with 60 or 70mg of alcohol in their systems and would a 50mg limit reduce these accidents?

We need to note that France has a 50mg limit but has a substantially higher death rate than the UK. This mustn’t make us complacent, because each death is a tragedy for the family, but it may indicate that simply reducing the limit won’t solve the problem.

Zero-tolerance presents too many difficulties for the public to accept it and without public acceptance it will only result in a deterioration of the relationship between the police and the public. Many drivers have traces of alcohol from the food they eat or from modest drinking many hours earlier.

What we need is greater enforcement and higher penalties. I support the system that they have in Denmark where the fine is a multiple of the amount of alcohol times the driver’s monthly income and the driver must then pay to attend an alcohol and traffic course.

Zero tolerance is the only way ahead that has sufficient strength to narrow the scope of the problem.

It will take time to become accepted – but we’ll get there in the end.

We should vote it into law soon.

First catch your drunk.

If drunk drivers are causing so many deaths then it suggests a lot are not being caught. There’s absolutely no point in lowering the limit if the current one cannot or is not being adequately enforced.

Greater enforcement of the existing rules would be a start – not enough are caught – of any age. But there is no doubt the young tend to be more irresponsible.

I know as a young man I drove a few times after drinking “too much” but – an interesting point – even when I was stopped – it wasn’t because of my bad drunken driving – but because a rear light was broken – and the policeman had nothing to do! I was polite, attentive and mildly happy – so the policeman stated he would not breathalyse me as my driving was fine. Also must add never had an accident after drinking. Now I wouldn’t drink at all.

Sadly I think that zero-tolerance will be the ultimate answer as it seems the young tend to be more irresponsible now.

Do those advocating zero tolerance not realise that the Pub trade in this Country is already decimated? Making a profit is near impossible – look at the £billions debts of Punch Taverns. How many more nails in the Local Pub coffins do they want to inflict? No smoking inflicted enough damage.
The current legal limit – if adhered to – is safe. Those who break that limit will ignore the zero tolerance one as well.
The police need to ensure current limit is being observed.
I am a non drinker, so it wont affect me – but I dont want to see another of our Local Pubs, where the men gather for company and relaxation closed for ever.
Look instead at banning late opening hours, and at the pubs, especially in City centres which entice in the young who just want to get as much as they can down their necks. Broad Street in Birmingham is a classic. The Police should be waiting at car parks there with breathalisers.

Lowering the limit is not the answer, althought typical of the modern thought process, ie, if the existing law is not being obeyed, let’s make it even more stringent! Those who drink over the existing limit will drink over any limit and the answer is to catch them, not penalise existing law abiding citizens further. I will only have one pint if I’m driving and the current limit then gives a safe leeway in case there is alchohol in the food or a residue in my body from some time earlier. The current limit needs to be much more rigourously enforced with random breath tests and drug tests, too. Let’s have “zero tolerance” of those who break the existing limit and all over laws as well, for that matter. But if we do not have enough police to catch those exceeding the existing limit, what’s the point of lowering it anyway?

I don’t think zero tolerance will work because the drivers who are ignoring the current limit will also ignore the lower limit. The only effect will be to further penalise the resposible drivers who either do not drink at all if they are driving or stick within the limit if they choose to have a drink. The problem is that the offenders are not being caught.

make (drink driving – awareness,) part of the “driving test.

colour coded stickers on front screen’s, for ( six month’s ) to show speeding offence..

Why not try seriously enforcing the limit we have by introducing random testing? If that doesn’t work then maybe think about lowering it. People drink-drive because they know the chances of getting caught are relatively small.
Also, how does a person know on the ‘morning after’ that he or she is still over the limit? Most people probably assume that once you have slept it off, you are OK. Unless we all have personal breathalysers we can’t know.
I don’t know if this is relevant, but of the four people I know who have been disqualified due to being over the limit, not one had been in a pub. One had been at a party and their taxi had failed to show, the other three had got drunk at home, and two of them had serious drinking problems quite apart from driving.

Jim is spot on regarding random testing. I used to live in Western Australia where motorists were frequently stopped for breath tests, irrespective of any offence being committed. The idea of drinking and driving amongst my friends never arose because of the real likelihood of being stopped. The opposite is true in the UK where many think it worth the risk…

I am in agreement with those that say that the penalty for drink driving should be severe. It should be ablack and white issue. If you’re over the limit, then you pay the price! In my view there are far too many (celebrity, establishment and/or wealthy persona) court cases within the media that are seemingly judged differently, with driving bans with-held or vastly reduced. The man-in-the-street in my view is judged far more harshly.
Drink-driving does kill – but so does drugs-driving! Where is the legislation and system for control and measurement of drugs-driving offenders? The judgement AND enforcement of drugs-driving law needs to be addressed immediately!!

I think that the Limit, should be lowered to 50ml because ive had enoguh of seeing people getting run over in the news. i am only 16 and im doing my science gcse, but i now understand the issues of drink driving. I personally think that The World is blaming teenagers for this, but i think that the majority is the adults and they should take responsibility for there own actions 🙂

moo mofo

I was run over on St Patrick’s Day by a driver who said to his friends he felt: “Safe”. He was spotted and his licence plates were passed to police. He was still 2.5 times over the limit when the police collared him the next morning. As a result of the injuries I received I lost my left leg. I got life. He got six months and a twelve month ban. ZERO TOLERANCE is the only way.