N.Ireland lower drink drive limit.

moonrakerz

jase1 wrote: »

I have no sympathy whatsoever for people who drink and drive.

Just what do you mean by "drink and drive" ?
It probably takes several days for 1 glass of wine/1 pint to completely clear the body. Are you seriously suggesting that no one drives for 2 or 3 days after having one drink ?

This will just criminalise a large number of "innocent" drivers whilst the the real drunks still get away with it.

colino

The Police I'm sure are not lobbying for it, they tend to pull drivers who have, by their poor driving, simply drawn attention to themselves. Otherwise what's the point? If you are not impaired, the Police should, rightly, leave you alone.
More sinister is the formalising (the Police already do it through imagined RTA breaches) of "random" breath tests. No one has the right to presume a citizen is guilty of anything unless a breach of the law causes the police to intervene.

Paradigm

Here's a radical idea... instead of changing a law for the sake of change how about we actually enforce the law as it stands?

Whats wrong with random testing? Get some police outside a pub at chucking out time & test everyone driving, move to another pub the next day... the message would soon get round.

There is no point in any change if there isn't the will, or manpower, to back it up. I can see it now.... new law introduced & a 3 month blitz by the police trying to catch previously lawful drivers.

Then a slide back to where we are now, the chances of any driver being tested if not involved in an accident are virtually nil.

It's a good headline grabber though!

Lum

Only problem with testing everyone leaving the pub is some officers will go for the easy option and just arrest drunk people who choose to sleep in their cars rather than drive home as this is also an offence.

If we're going to be adjusting the drink drive laws they should add a requirement to prove intent to drive (and I mean proper proof not just "has car keys in their possession as they're on the same ring as the house keys) in this situation as there are some people who believe that there is lower risk of getting caught to drive home than to just sleep in the car.

Paradigm

Lum wrote: »

Only problem with testing everyone leaving the pub is some officers will go for the easy option and just arrest drunk people who choose to sleep in their cars rather than drive home as this is also an offence.

If we're going to be adjusting the drink drive laws they should add a requirement to prove intent to drive (and I mean proper proof not just "has car keys in their possession as they're on the same ring as the house keys) in this situation as there are some people who believe that there is lower risk of getting caught to drive home than to just sleep in the car.

Point taken but I did say

& test everyone driving

scheming_gypsy

Lowering it will increase road traffic accidents.

A sixth of deaths in road traffic accidents are caused by people under the influence of alcohol. Which means the majority are done by sober people.

redped

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

Lowering it will increase road traffic accidents.

How?

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

A sixth of deaths in road traffic accidents are caused by people under the influence of alcohol. Which means the majority are done by sober people.

Even if only 1/6th of those killed/injured are caused by those under the influence, is it not still a good idea to try to reduce those numbers? I assume there will also be proposals at some stage to tackle the other 5/6ths.

According to Alex Attwood (via the BBC):

"over the past five years, 75 people had been killed and 463 seriously injured by drivers impaired on drink or drugs"

Northern Ireland isn't a huge place (population of just over 1.5 million), so I personally find those figures to be very high. It makes a welcome change to see someone in authority trying to reduce these figures, rather than sit idly by and spending the day waffling, which is what normally happens with our MLAs at Stormont. It's nice to actually see one of our politicians trying to do something useful for a change.

scheming_gypsy

redped wrote: »

How?


Even if only 1/6th of those killed/injured are caused by those under the influence, is it not still a good idea to try to reduce those numbers? I assume there will also be proposals at some stage to tackle the other 5/6ths.

I'm guessing it was wasted on you....

redped

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

I'm guessing it was wasted on you....

I'm afraid it was - I'm still trying to figure out how your view that lowering the alcohol limit will increase the number of accidents makes any sense at all.

moonrakerz

redped wrote: »

"over the past five years, 75 people had been killed and 463 seriously injured by drivers impaired on drink or drugs"

I am afraid statements like that are meaningless without a lot more information to go with them - what percentage drink ? what percentage drugs. How many were killed by drivers NOT impaired by drink or drugs ?

The debate over speed cameras has been led by that all encompassing statement that 30% of road accidents are caused by excess speed. What isn't stated with this figure is that only around 5% of road accidents involve a vehicle/vehicles exceeding the speed limit at the time of the accident.
This new debate on drinking and driving looks like being skewed by some equally dodgy statistics.