>>>>Why oh why do these wallies rejoice over the lives of innocent drink drivers being expensively disrupted?
>>>>We aren't talking careless or dangerous drivers who have caused accidents here, but harmless people who have been trawled in a random way.
>>>>>Just because you can't drive safely after a half of shandy you shouldn't assume no one else can.
What an astonishing post! Right on the lines of "I can drink XXX and drive perfectly safely. I can handle my drink". Absolute rubbish.
If you're over the legal limit, driving apparently fine and pulled over, breathalised and nicked, then good. You may look and feel capable but if it came to needing to emergency stop then reaction times are affected even if you feel fine. I thought everyone knew such basics.
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The limit is just about right at the moment.
It catches those who've probably had more than they should to drive, but doesn't catch those who've had a little, or who have some alcohol remaining in them from the night before, etc.
It's a fair limit.
Zero tolerance is too strict. Far too many ordinary, non-dangerous drivers would be caught up in it.
Increasing the limit would be too lenient.
It's just about right in my opinion. So trust the Government to want to change it.
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In my younger days (6 months ago ;) I used to drive home after a max. of 2 pints, and whilst I could feel the effect it had on me, this made me extra careful in my driving. I don't believe the drink I had made me dangerous. I don't have more than one pint now though as I value my licence and a DD conviction would kill me insurance wise, etc. Not that I am admitting to drink driving because I don't know whether I was over the limit or not.
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>>However, if people are pulled because they are seen driving erratically or badly and then breathalysed, I think that's all right. Provided they really were seen >>driving erratically. It's something plod can always say after pulling someone. Catch dangerous drivers and ban them by all means. But nothing will convince me >>that having 51mg per ml, of itself, makes a person dangerous.
Then I would say that I fully support the proposed change in limits if it stops people like you who think you are above the law (and so resistant to the effects of alcohol) from drink driving.
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UncleR, what makes you say I think I am above the law?
That's the trouble with drink driving and speeding. People get hot under the collar about them and become what is called 'personal'. Don't understand this myself. Surely these laws and regulations can be discussed for what they are?
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I agree with Pendulum. Its about right at the moment. I know people say our limit is higher than France etc...but if you get caught there you don't get a year ban, its a matter of weeks (and not 52!). The problem isn't with people who have between 50-80mg/l, its those that ignore the 80 limit.
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Well I say you think you are above the law because you seem to feel entitled to set your own drink-drive limit, which I disagree with. You may feel fit to drive but that isn't for you to judge if you've had more than the legal limit.
I don't think I have become 'personal' but yes, it does get me hot under the collar when people have an attitude like yours to drink driving. If as a country we adopted a relaxed attitude like yours, drink driving would probably become more prevalent with people all convincing themselves they are "ok to drive".
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If as a country we adopted a relaxed attitude like yours drink driving would probably become more prevalent with people all convincing themselves they are "ok to drive".
Not sure it would because a lot of people are terrified of driving at all times and don't want to risk another complication. But before the blood-alcohol limit became law, that was how things were more or less. People were done for drunken driving, or they weren't, or they were borderline cases. Just like now really.
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The UK has a perfectly acceptable set of laws that cover drink driving.
THere is a limit, which most agree fairly reflects a point above which, most people can assume to be impaired.
There is technology freely available and used to deem absolutely if you have broken this limit.
The limit is absolute and rigidly adheared to with no mitigating factors.
Penalties are severe, (some of the most severe in the world) from loosing the right to drive for at least a year, up to imprisonment, and in a significant number of cases, loss of job and the resulting family trauma and poverty this can bring..
In addition, for the majority of the population there is little tolerance and universal repugnance for those that are deemed to attempt, or actually do break these stringent laws.
You sometimes get caught for breaking this law if you have an accident and kill someone, or your driving is of such a poor standard that eventually you may get spotted by one of a dwindling band of enforcement officers, who if not engaged on work elsewhere, may have the time to stop you.
Now given all the above, *if* there is a significant problem with drunken drivers (which I dispute - the uk having the safest roads in the world) can you work out where, if anywhere there is a problem with the current situation, and where the resolution may lie.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Spot on TVM. Lowering it to 50 would suggest a lot of problems with people being caught at present with alcohol limits below 80 but above 50, which clearly isn't the case.
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>>>Now given all the above, *if* there is a significant problem with drunken drivers (which I dispute - the uk having the safest roads in the world) can you work out where, if anywhere there is a problem with the current situation, and where the resolution may lie.
Well, one problem is that drink driving is on the increase:
"According to figures from the Department for Transport, 1,050 17- to 19-year-olds were involved in drink-drive accidents in England and Wales in 2005, compared with only 810 in 1995. For 20- to 25-year-olds, the figure increased from 2,170 to 2,280 in the same period."
"According to the ETSC, drink-drive deaths have fallen sharply in European countries apart from Britain and Spain. Drink-drive deaths in Germany and the Netherlands have fallen by more than 50% since 1998, but Britain has seen a 17% increase over the same period, from 410 in 1998 to 480 in 2005."
Full story: www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2103840,00.h...l
So yes, it would appear *something* needs to be done.
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I would think this rise is more to do with the decline in traffic police than anything else.
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I would think this rise is more to do with the decline in traffic police than anything else.>>
I agree with this and also with the view that there is no need to adjust the limit.
One way of keeping people on their toes would be to have more traffic cops and always stop anyone with duff lights. Great excuse to breathalise them and check their tax/insurance/MoT etc. As said many times before on this forum - it's all about enforcement.
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When I started driving, *any* obvious defect would *guarantee* a pull. Brakelight out? get pulled, bulb gone? get pulled, dirty numberplate? get pulled.
As a 19 year old in a flash Capri, I got tugged by the old bill everytime I went out. Mind it was never pleasant, it was always hostile, but by jimminy I knew I had to be 100% buttoned up legal.
These days I see, litterally 100s of cars with illegal numberplates, defective lights, I watch police cars stopped behind them in the traffic james. Get pulled? Nah.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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"According to figures from the Department for Transport, 1,050 17- to 19-year-olds were involved in drink-drive accidents in England and Wales in 2005, compared with only 810 in 1995. For 20- to 25-year-olds, the figure increased from 2,170 to 2,280 in the same period."
Can anyone tell me how many more 17 - 19 year olds held driving licences in 2005 compared to 1995, similarly how many more 20 - 25 year old drivers for the same years?
Given that we're told the uk population is increasing all the time these figures need to be percentages for comparison not absolute numbers.
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TVM, spot on, I agree.
The reason, Uncle R, why DD is on the increase is surely the decline in traffic police - something the government has belated cottoned onto with it's rapping of Police force knuckles over the issue.
The reasons for the decline in traffic police are not simple, but major factors include targets, and the rise of speed cameras.
Using mobile phones whilst driving is almost as bad as DD in my book, but law breakers are clearly visible. Yet still they do it, because by and large there are no traffic police to enfroce the laws.
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So assuming this decline of traffic police isn't going to be addressed in the short term, wouldn't tighter DD laws possibly contribute to greater compliance as drivers take less risks with the amount they drink?
I just can't help thinking it must surely be a step in the right direction.
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No No wrong thinking.
Root cause. The root cause is lack of enforcement. Tinkering with stuff after the root cause wont
fix it. By changing the limit all you do is move the 2.0 pints people into 1 or 1.5 pint people. They could probably drive with a fair degree of safety at 1.5 or 2 pints anyway.
Its the 4 or 5 pints and drive every night or every weekend drivers that are going to kill people.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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i agree TVM when i was a lad i too always used to get pulled by the fuzz and therefore always have made my car 100% legal ,nowadays ive no fuzz to pull.
theres lots more i could say but ive "bottled" it up for later :-)
maybe bikergirl has the answer on her stead of steel
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Further to normd2's post re percentages and statistics, in general, may we be told how many people are killed each year:-
1. Due to driving impaired by drink
2. Due to driving impaired by non-medicinal drugs
3. Driving without any one or more of tax/MOT/ insurance/ licence
4. Being pursued by the police
5. In an accident caused by poor roads and/or signage.
An analysis of these figures would show that we need more traffic police (definitely) and that drink driving is not the biggest killer (probably). Drink driving is NOT legal or sensible but it isn't the biggest problem on the roads IMO.
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Drink driving is NOT legal or sensible but it isn't the biggest problem on the roads IMO.
I don't want to quibble AS but driving after moderate drinking is legal. Whether it is sensible or not is a question for the individual concerned.
Quite a lot of road deaths involving drink are the result of drunk pedestrians blundering into cars in the dark while looking the other way. I don't know what the percentage is but it's quite high. It happened to me once and was most upsetting. Fortunately the pedestrian was not too badly hurt, but I was driving someone else's car and it cost me money. I didn't want to pursue the pedestrian for the money because I felt guilty about him although the accident was entirely his fault. He was hurt and I wasn't.
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Lud - what I didn't quite spell out is that by "Drink Driving" I meant driving when over the limit as defined by the law, as opposed to driving with a low and legal amount of drink in one's system! It would probably be sensible if we went over the the Scandanavian system where the limit is zero and then everyone knows where they stand, no guesswork, no I'm OK I had a big plate of greasy fish and chips etc. Any drink = No driving. Inconvenient but easy to understand and apply.
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Quite a lot of road deaths involving drink are the result of drunk pedestrians blundering into cars in the dark while looking the other way. I don't know what the percentage is but it's quite high. It happened to me once and was most upsetting.
For a minute there, Lud, I thought you were 'fessing up to a perambulatory problems of your own!
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No No wrong thinking.>>
Exactly right - to lower the alcohol limit in the present circumstances is like saying "because drivers are still speeding, we will lower the speed limits". All you succeed in doing is annoying the more "reasonable" drivers.
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The UK has a perfectly acceptable set of laws that cover drink driving.
Agreed, if you tamper with them much more, you will have to bring in measures such as a tiredness test, or a 'not feeling very well' test. As both of these conditions can be worse than someone who is only at or near the present limit.
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Maybe if "Pubs" didn't have car-parks, more folk wouldn't bother driving to the pub, or be tempted to drive home at the end of the night, rather than make a return journey for thier car the next day (when they may still be over the limit). Before anyone says this doesn't happen, it does, there are 22 pubs in this ere ole town, and depending where you live, no-body would have further than 200yards to walk if they followed thier nearest one. yet every night, you can see at least half a dozen cars in any one of them and you "know" that most of them WON'T be there when the pub closes.
They've managed to turf out the smokers, now they should do the same to the cars!!
billy
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What a brilliant idea billy. I should think the landlords of country pubs will be clamouring to hire you as their representative under the banner: 'Anything for a quiet life'.
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Yes, but what about Ye Olde Countrye Pube with no more than half a dozen folk within walking distance. You don't want to lose those, do you?
Designated driver is the way to go.
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Actually drinking at home is the way to go, as pubs are finding out to their cost and supermarkets and off-licenses are seeing from their profits!
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a lot of my drinking clubs car park (cant afford pubs anymore ;-) ) has been taken up with a wooden plinth thing for the smokers so in a sense the car park has been made smaller by govt intervention
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Its a bit of a distraction the explosion in drug driving isn't being properly addressed. I don't drink and drive and I never have and never will. I think the current level is about right though.....
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'The root cause is lack of enforcement'
that is incorrect
more people than ever are being breath tested. The majority of people breath tested are not actually breath tested by the traffic police anyway so the decline in those numbers is immaterial
most are done by the average pc in a panda
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UncleR: "Well, one problem is that drink driving is on the increase"
Then address it. Your statement reflects the situation with an 80Mg limit. In what way is decreasing the limit going to improve this situation? Put more Police on the roads and you'll go some way towards reducing the problem.
It's a similar response to the attitude taken to noisy bikes. There are a handful of noisy bikes, so instead of attacking the problem - namely get them off the road - we just get tighter noise regs for all bikes.
This type of policy is just an admission of failure. "We can't enforce the current law, so let's propose a tighter law"
V
PS, I speak as a non-drinker, so I never drink and drive.
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'The root cause is lack of enforcement' that is incorrect
No its not.
You are getting breath tests mixed up with traffic stops. Breath testing only takes place when an officer suspects an offence has taken place. In the old days 50% of stops did not result in breath testing because an officer could tell if it was required or not.
These days an officer only shows up AFTER the event. It is in effect an self fullfilling statistic. A drunk has caused chaos and all the police do these days is confirm he is a drunk.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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im not getting anything mixed up
Police can stop any car to examine the drivers licence /documents. A quick sniff and a few questions usually forms the required suspicion.I would guess that most drink drivers are caught that way.
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Yes exactly. The problem is the stops are happening less frequently.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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The current limit should remain the level at which an automatic ban is given but an additional lower limit should be introduced, carrying 9 penalty points plus fine.
One hidden problem of drink driving is the person who would never consider drink driving while relatively sober but one day, after getting drunk, decides to go for a drive. How one deters such cases I don't know as we are dealing with irrational minds when we are dealing with drunks.
So there is a distinction between the person who thinks they're OK when they've had a few or they won't get caught because they are not much over the limit, and the person who only makes a decision to go for a drive when they are already very drunk.
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The original research commissioned by the government when the current limit was being devised showed that 80% of subjects showed an improvement after drinking the current limit, and 20% showed no difference. I fear this will be another way of raising fines for what will become a a regulatory offence, while real crimes remain unchecked and unpunished.
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>>that 80% of subjects showed an improvement after drinking the current limit
An improvement in the standard of their driving Ashok?
I wouldn't be surprised. A couple of drinks don't make you much slower or stupider, and they may reduce the tension and paranoia that make so many people drive badly. I don't think alcohol makes me drive better, but I've seen it make other people drive better.
Still, in this forum you're taking your life in your hands saying a thing lke that. Good luck.
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The sad fact is there is little chance of being caught..
We have a Government which believes passing a law means a problem is solved... (see the state of the jails as an indication of the success of the policy).
And if all that was done was:
1. more people were breathalised.
2. those driving illegally (no licence/banned/no insurance etc) were stopped driving . Period.
The roads would be safer and government revenues would rise through RFL and insurance tax.
But words and a change in the law are cheaper and grab headlines. (and bring politicians into even more contempt ...)
madf
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it's like everything else nowadays
if you were to lower the limit (which i'm not in favour of), the only people it would really affect is
the generally law abiding who take notice of laws and comply with it
the problem drinker who doesn't give two hoots will drink drive over the 80 limit, let alone a 50 limit.........it's the same principle as ever slower speed limits i.e. you'll only really be penalising the law abiding
the reason why drink/driving is increasing:
is over a period of time (last 20 years) it became socially unacceptable to drink/drive (which is positive) and the hard core, often older driver who was still used to doing it has gradually accepted that norm, been caught or hung up their driving gloves, so the figures were lowered
but...there has been a new crop of young drivers coming through the system, who have not been used to conforming to society's norms (through more relaxed parenting/ less discipline in schools and considerably less traffic cops/general cops concentrating on traffic work), so they do what they want..........
it can be no surprise that drink/driving is increasing.....and drug driving, which is as equally worrying.........and then if you're caught, there's no one monitoring whether or not you drive whilst disqualified, (very few traffic cops and general cops 'tasked' to other matters) if you keep doing it, there's little likelihood of prison, which to the under classes is the only real deterrent
don't hound the generally law abiding.... concentrate on the low life that need it
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Once a week a drive 7 miles to a country pub. Public transport to it is impossible if I want to get there and back on the same day. I enjoy one and a half pints of 3.4% beer and drive home again. By reducing the limit to 50 mgs. this pleasure will be denied me a number of my friends and the busy pub will lose trade. Far better to enforce the current sensible limit.
Perhaps in a few years prohibition of alcohol in pubs will be introduced due to the dangers of secondary drinking so being bored to death by inebriated drinkers can be avoided, no need to stop at just banning smoking.
Peter
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>>>it can be no surprise that drink/driving is increasing.....and drug driving, which is as equally worrying.<<<
I even heard that there are groups of hardcore street racers who deliberately drink or take drugs before driving.
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