NI Halves Drink Drive Limit!

spike7451

Heard this on the news on the way home,also random breathalyser tests coming in.

The drink-drive limit is to be almost halved for most drivers under the biggest shake-up in the law for 40 years.

Random breath testing will enforce the tough new limits.

At present many people can have at least one drink and drive.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/drink-drive-limit-to-be-halved-16055024.html

Mistral001

Good idea. However random tests? Not sure they will get that passed. A lot of work for the police. Police usually only can randomly stop you under emergency powers etc. The emergency here perhaps is that Alex Attwood is standing for the leadership of the SDLP in a few weeks.

one2escape

I don't drink but dont like the sound of randomly stopping you. A step to far I think.

spike7451

Mistral001 wrote: »

Good idea. However random tests? Not sure they will get that passed. A lot of work for the police. Police usually only can randomly stop you under emergency powers etc. The emergency here perhaps is that Alex Attwood is standing for the leadership of the SDLP in a few weeks.

According to something they said also on the news,these measures were mainly aimed at the young (late teens to late twenties) as well as those in company vans,so it looks like they're targetting those on the way to work after a skinful the night before..

one2escape

There must be age discrimination laws there somewhere.

esuhl

one2escape wrote: »

I don't drink but dont like the sound of randomly stopping you. A step to far I think.

As if the police ever needed an escuse to stop you! I remember being pulled over in a beat-up rust bucket of a (validly MOT'd, road legal & safely driven) Ford Fiesta when I was 17. The reason the police gave for stopping me? I had suspiciously parked outside a bank and they had heard reports of a "possible bank robbery". They gave each other a sideways look as if to say "I think we got away with that one". I don't think it helped when I burst out laughing, though... They went over the car with a fine-toothed comb and kept me there for 45 minutes! Thankfully they couldn't find fault with anything and had to let me go.

All they've ever needed is "Your car just happens to match the description we have for <made up incident> so we stopped you. Obviously we can see you're not the person we're looking for, but now we've got you here...".

whiskeygalore

MR Attwood would appear to be totally against alcohol in any form,in his previous post he wanted to increase the price per unit/volume in order to stop the young binge drinking as if, it would just hit the middle class once again who like my-self who enjoy a beer or glass of wine at home, with no need/intention of driving.I am totally against drink driving but I feel MR Attwood is just anti alcohol and is playing on this just to score easy points. Surely although it may be difficult for him he could put at least some effort into getting us out of the financial mess we are in and let us middle of the road people alone

catnia

Zero alcohol limit would be preferable to me. No confusion then with people feeling that one glass of wine/beer does or doesn't put them over the limit.

Mistral001

whiskeygalore wrote: »

MR Attwood would appear to be totally against alcohol in any form,in his previous post he wanted to increase the price per unit/volume ...

I can never for the life of me understand how you can have a minimum price of drink unless you do it by increasing duty. Seems like just a licence for the breweries and supermarkets to print money. I wish someone would put a minimum price on the work that I do - I would not have to use MSE or if I did I would be accessing it from a laptop on my 30ft yacht!

redped

whiskeygalore wrote: »

MR Attwood would appear to be totally against alcohol in any form,in his previous post he wanted to increase the price per unit/volume in order to stop the young binge drinking as if, it would just hit the middle class once again who like my-self who enjoy a beer or glass of wine at home, with no need/intention of driving.I am totally against drink driving but I feel MR Attwood is just anti alcohol and is playing on this just to score easy points. Surely although it may be difficult for him he could put at least some effort into getting us out of the financial mess we are in and let us middle of the road people alone

Did you ever consider the possibility that he is actually trying to reduce the number of deaths & injuries on our roads? You do realise that not everything is part of a giant conspiracy?

If these changes save the life of even one person, then I'd say they're worth it.

redped

catnia wrote: »

Zero alcohol limit would be preferable to me. No confusion then with people feeling that one glass of wine/beer does or doesn't put them over the limit.

While I agree in principle, some medicines and foods contain small amounts of alcohol (sherry trifle being the usual example mentioned when a zero limit is suggested). So I don't personally believe a zero limit is practical, but I certainly support reducing it from the current limit.