Safe Speed Forums

In another thread, In Gear wrote "...and we would prosecute you if you got drunk and decided to spend might in your car.... " On a motorcaravan forum, this question recently came up and was not satisfactorily resolved.

Asume you park your motorhome in a lay-by where overnight stops are permitted. You have a few glasses of wine (just enough to put you over the drink-drive limit) with your evening meal and then settle down for the night. You are in the vehicle, have possession of the keys, but have no intention of driving until the following morning, by which time your alcohol level will be below the limit. Are you guilty of any offence? If so, what?

Now assume that you park in a motorway service area instead of a lay-by. You pay the overnight parking charge, have your meal and wine and then settle down for the night. Are you now guilty of an offence?

Lastly, assume that you park in a designated campsite where the general public have right of way. You have your meal and wine etc. Are you now guilty of an offence?

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Will

Will,

In all 3 scenarios you described you would commit the offence of being 'drunk in charge' under section 5(1)(b) of the road traffic act, as they are all places to which the public have access, and this offence applies to a road OR a public place. However the legislators presumably forsaw the situations you described, and to section 5(2) goes on to say

'It is a defence for a person charged with and offence under subsection (1)(b) above to prove that at the time he is alleged to have committed the offence the circumstances were such that there was no liklihhod of his driving the vehicle whilst the proportion of alcohol in his breath, blood or urine remained likely to exceed the prescribed limit'

Clearly therefore when deciding guilt the courts would treat the scenarios you described in a much different light to someone found drunk, in the driving seat with the engine running.

Hope that helps.

Welcome Swift,

Are you BiB by any chance? A double welcome if you are.

What if there are five adult occupants of said motorhome, all licenced and insured to drive. All have had a couple of glasses of wine. The keys are on the table...

I think the bottom line here is really that we desperately need common sense to be applied by our Police to limit the worst excesses of the law being applied inappropriately.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Hello all!!

My FIRST ever post! Been looking at the site for many months but finally took the plunge and signed up! Yes, i'm Plod, but NOT traffic! (no offence to the Rats on the site!)

The scenario suggested by Paul could have a multitude of answers. I would give the 'common sense' answer, in that i couldn't care less about the people being a bit tipsy as long as none tried to drive. The argument could go round in circles and to be honest it would up to the Court to decide. It would be a pretty sad cop to bring in 5 law-abiding citizens in front of the Custody Sergeant for Drunk In Charge!

Welcome.

I hope everyone will make you welcome and equally I hope we'll benefit from your professional experience. I'm pleased you felt it worthwhile to sign-up and de-lurk.

See this message:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1301



Quite. It's critical that the Police are empowered to act with common sense and discretion. After all it's these police "powers" that are our protection from the law being an ass.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

@Swift and The Man: Welcome, it's nice to see new faces.


On the other forum, it was suggested that prosecution could defeat any such defence by introducing circumstances where your likelihood of driving was greater than zero. For example, by postulating a police officer's requirement that the vehicle be moved. If that is so, the defence provided by 5(2) may be useless.

Also debated was what is required to be "in charge of a motor vehicle"? For example, would the mere possession of the keys be enough? Here's some example scenarios:

Assume that you've parked on the street and have no intention of driving. You and your partner have split a bottle of wine when there's a knock at the door, which you open to find a police officer who requires you to move your car. Are you now drunk in charge of the vehicle?

What if you (quite rightly, from a safety point of view) decline to move the vehicle? Can a police officer require the registered keeper to move a vehicle, or merely require its removal? What timeframe is allowed for the vehicle's removal (is enough time allowed for the keeper to sober up or find someone sober enough to drive)?

Sorry if this seems a little over the top, but we have in the SCPs a precedent for unreasonable, pedantic, and draconian enforcement where police discretion would be more appropriate. I'm wondering whether the law is such that, in theory, anyone who parks their car on the street and then has a few drinks in the privacy of their own home could be committing an offence.

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Will

I'd like to add my welcome to Swift and The Man.

On the subject of this thread, I understand the points being raised but have to say I think it's unhelpful to raise and then extend hypothetical and somewhat improbable scenarios and ask police officers who visit here to comment on them. It doesn't really illuminate the issues and risks alienating members who I would like to hang around and contribute more rather than less. I'm sure genuine (even hypothetical) questions are fine up to a point, but when the hypothesis is stretched too far, it seems to me that the person being asked to comment may feel he is being led into a trap.

Sorry if this offends you willcove and I'm not trying to speak for Swift and The Man - just expressing some unease with the direction of the thread.

I don't think the hypothetical questions being asked here are that unlikely, TBH. I think the ultimate answer to any of the above scenarios is that it depends how much the copper wants to stick something on you.

A friend of my brother's was forcibly removed from the rear seat of his car and charged with drunk in charge of a vehicle. He was asleep at the time in a public carpark, and the BiB in question had tried for a while to wake him up, but had failed, so they put the rear window in with a truncheon and got him out that way.

The prosecution was successful as well, and lead to a 6-month ban. Their main evidence that he was ready and willing to drive away (despite being fast asleep) was that the keys were in the ignition. His argument that he'd done this to put the radio on was ignored.

Now fair enough, in retrospect he shouldn't have put the keys in the ignition at all, but the engine was off and the radio on, so it doesn't stretch the imagination too much to believe he wasn't going anywhere.

So, in summation, I reckon you could potentially get done for any of the hypothetical offences above if you annoyed the right (wrong?) person enough.

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Carl Prescott

I'm not offended and I understand your concerns. I give assurances that I'm not trying to trap anyone, it's just that the "follow-up" questions are meaningless without the prior responses. Anyway, how can a request for informed interpretation about the law to which factual responses are given be a mechanism for entrapment of the responding individual? Such a process may be used to argue that a particular law is wrong, but isn't that part of what debate on these forums is about?

To put your mind at ease, I'll state the final questions that I intended posing should the answer to my previous one be that technically you could be guilty of "drunk in charge" if you parked your car on street with no intention of driving again that day, and then went indoors and had a few drinks.

Assuming possible guilt, what if you and your partner both had access to the keys - would you both be guilty? What if you had access to more than one vehicle - would you be guilty of multiple offences?

I promise that's it. I intend taking this thread no further but would be grateful for input from those in a position to know.

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Will

To be honest, I can well imagine that a fair proportion of cases where people are charged with "drunk in charge" rather than "driving or attempting to drive" involve some element of unfairness or unreasonableness on the part of the police.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Welcome to Swift and The Man.

I am BiB ... work in Durham and just love working up here. Hanbo is a retired cop (as I understand?)

Will .. mate ... Swift has already answered you correctly....

In the case of a motor home ... I may indeed use my discretion .. but much wwould depend upon where the driver had parked up for the nigh and whether or not another completely sober driver was acvailable in the eyes of the law....

But basically ... if I suspected someone intended to drive or had been driving .... I would take it further ... because I am honour bound to do so....

Yes Will .. have faced this very situation. I used my common sense. The driver was at home... I knocked on the door and asked hin to move his car .He replied that he was a bit squiffy. I then aked if I could tow it out of harm's way ... problem solved.

I would like to think we all behave in a similar understanding fashion. I do not go out of my way to entrap people.... They do it all by themselves

We do not operate like the SCPs ... (do not have one here ... but police are not prats! )

What was wrong with you starting it up and moving it for the tipsy RK rather than going through the polava of hooking a line to it?

I believe this question is just as relevant to truck drivers parked up for the night.
I can't see a police car towing 44ton of truck out of the way, and to be fair, asking an officer to move it under it's own steam with some of the weird and wonderful gearboxes around would be a bit much to ask.
I stop at truckstops quite regularly and am astounded at the amount of drinking that goes on.
I personally won't touch a drop when on the road apart from once when I was overnighted at Carlisle and was doing a trailer change the following day at about 1000hrs. My last drink was about 2200hrs.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.