Safe Speed Forums

I believe that this is the primary evidence and remains more or less unchallenged

Maybe it's just an artefact of the resolution used to draw the graph, but it seems to suggest also that a 0.02% BAC results in slightly less likelihood of serious collision than zero.

No, that's certainly a genuine feature of the statistics, often referred to as the "Borkenstein dip" (from the author of the primary source on drink-driving risk that underpinned the original 1967 legislation).

My view is that it is unlikely really to indicate that consuming a small amount of alcohol will make you a slightly better driver. It is probably a combination of the fact that people driving after one or two small drinks are likely to be driving at times when the roads are quieter than average, and that they may try to compensate for the alcohol by making an effort to drive more carefully than usual. But it underlines the fact that, at such low levels, alcohol does not impair driving ability at all.

They don't need to produce anything. If the blood alcohol level is 0% by law, then anything else gets you banned.
The fact that you have not yet had an accident, even when you have some alcohol, doesn't mean it is safe to drive after drinking, just that nothing has happened to cause you to have had one....yet...

Given that the current limit cannot be imposed to a respectable degree, and that there is no suggestion that drivers with blood-alcohol below the legal limit are overrepresented in crash statistics, it would appear that this change merely constitutes soapbox posturing and additional over-legislation.

I would say they need to produce evidence that low levels of blood-alcohol increase the risk perceptibly, before making a 0% limit that would see huge numbers of people potentially banned for driving after eating gravy, taking cough medicine or having had a single drink some hours ago. To suggest otherwise is to suffer the same stumbling blocks as the "speed kills" lie.

Given that the current limit cannot be imposed to a respectable degree, and that there is no suggestion that drivers with blood-alcohol below the legal limit are overrepresented in crash statistics, it would appear that this change merely constitutes soapbox posturing and additional over-legislation.

I would say they need to produce evidence that low levels of blood-alcohol increase the risk perceptibly, before making a 0% limit that would see huge numbers of people potentially banned for driving after eating gravy, taking cough medicine or having had a single drink some hours ago. To suggest otherwise is to suffer the same stumbling blocks as the "speed kills" lie.

That is not a very good argument against lowering the limit though Anton.
The immediate and obvious comeback is that having one's life 'spoiled' by a change in drink-drive laws pales into insignificance when comapred to losing it at the hands of a drink driver.

There has to be a limit somewhere although I too don't believe it should be zero. The current one seems to deter enough people from drink/driving simply because they cannot afford to gamble with their license. Not knowing how much you can drink to arrive at that limit is part of the 'magic trick' - if you don't know, don't risk it. If you risk it and get caught, too bad.

The same way they need to produce evidence that heightened atmospheric CO2 leads to global warming ?
And the same evidence that led to speed cameras stopping speeding, stopping road deaths ?
Evidence can be found, or manufactured.
That is not a problem. Surely you should know that by now. Even if there IS no evidence, enough publicity will generate sufficient public feeling that IT should be done.
There are MORE than enough scientists out there to produce a dramatic overkill of evidence.
http://www.tpuc.org/

I am a big chap 22 stone at the last check! I usualy have two pints of shandy which is probobly 1.5 pints over 3 hours + a meal. I have absolutly no idea wether that puts me at 30, 50 or 80mg.

The drink/drive chestnut has gone on for years. It is bandied by the Government along the same lines as speeding and smoking...

I know we're proud to be sceptical, but surely there's real evidence on drink drive?

About 1/6th (17%) of road deaths involve drivers over the legal alcohol limit, while less than 2% of drivers are drunk on average (survey results I've seen have ranged from 0.5% to 1.5%).

Surely the >10:1 over-representation in the fatal crash stats is all that we need to know that drink drive is a genuine problem?

I would be interested to learn the distribution of BACs within that 17%.

This was followed by an item calling for thick sliced bread to be banned.
I am not kidding!:headache:

Two pints do not make a killer

Fergus Shanahan - Sun Columnist
Published: 03 Dec 2007

ARE Labour trying to ruin pubs? Their latest plan to lower the drink-drive limit means you will barely be able to blow the froth off a pint before risking your licence.

If having just one beer or wine puts you over the top, it will spell disaster for pubs and restaurants. People going out for a meal will be too frightened to drink anything. So they will stay at home.

This is typical of Labour’s muddled thinking.

On the one hand they triumphantly declare that pubs can stay open all hours. On the other they make it impossible to do anything in them except sip a milkshake and stare at the wallpaper.

Pubs are already suffering from the fags ban. A stiffer drink-drive limit would finish a lot off for good.

Of course drink-driving is dangerous and wrong. It destroys lives.

But having a couple of pints or a few glasses of wine, especially spread over a meal, does not make you a criminal.

There is no logic to penalising all drivers when the answer is to focus attention on the worst drink-drive offenders: Young motorists.

Labour’s aim is to lower the two-pint limit by almost half to bring it into line with most of Europe.

Dogs are cleverer than cats - or so dog owners tell me' Read more

But there is no evidence that a lower limit cuts drink-drive deaths abroad: quite the opposite.

By comparison with the EU, the UK has an excellent road safety record. The EU concede this by placing us first in their list of best-performing states for accidents.

France, Italy, Spain and Greece are just some of our EU brethren whose roads are bloodbaths. As for Portugal, don’t even talk about it. Hire a donkey instead.

Last year, 3,172 died on our roads. In France it was 4,709, Germany 5,091, Spain 4,104 and in beer-swilling Poland 5,243.

All those countries have a lower drink-drive limit than Britain. Poland has a zero limit. These countries all operate big breathalyser campaigns. France alone tested eight million drivers last year.

So it's clear that simply lowering the drink limit doesn't guarantee safer roads.

There’s more drink driving here because there are fewer police patrols.

Cops leave it all to speed cameras while they sit in the nick.

Drunk drivers know they are unlikely to be caught.

And some immigrants particularly from Eastern Europe come from cultures that ignore drink limits.

We know that the main danger are young lads showing off to their mates in a tiny motor.

Newly-qualified British drivers between 17 and 19 are 14 times more likely to have a drunken crash than drivers between 35 and 49.

So target those drivers with far stiffer penalties.

Zero alcohol for the first two years after passing your test.

An automatic three-year ban for anyone under 21 drink-driving.

Do it twice and go to jail for five years.

But let’s keep a sense of proportion.

If Labour are so keen to save lives, let's start with the thousands killed by hospital bugs and poor cancer treatment.

The motorist is Labour’s favourite soft target.

Hammered by petrol tax and fleeced by speed cameras, responsible drivers will soon have to spend their nights sipping tomato juice.

The pubs will be open all hours. But there'll only be tonic water on draught.