Thursday 17 June 2010

Driving the limit down

Sir Peter North's review has now been published, recommending a cut in the drink-driving level from 80 to 50 mg. I've written on this previously.

All I can add is that there's nothing in these proposals to deal with the idiots who frankly don't care about any limit, who will continue to drive if banned, who killed a young woman whom I once knew and who nearly killed me twice when I was walking home from the pub one night. Two cars driven at high speeds at midnight in a residential area coming from opposite directions both nearly mowed me down within the space of 10 seconds as I crossed a side street.  Good job that, despite drinking all evening, I was alert enough to jump out of the way of each car in turn.

But lowering the limit is a quick, cheap fix, and like most quick fixes, it won't deal with the real problem, which is that, although drink driving is a very serious offence, the chances of being caught are very slim. As I said in my previous posting on this subject, we should enforce the current law far more rigorously and chase the real drunk drivers who will ignore any limit, rather than penalise the careful driver who conscientiously drinks within the present one. But enforcing the law in this way would be labour intensive and cost a lot of money ~ it's much easier and cheaper to make a law that sounds tough but at best simply nibbles at the edges of the problem.

5 comments:

  1. Exactly, all this would do is to alienate those who up to know have considered themselves to be law-abiding, while - assuming no more resources are devoted to enforcement - do nothing more to apprehend those already driving well above the limit.

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  2. I agree. More rigorous enforcing of current laws wouldn't go amiss. That and reinforcing the idea that motoring offences are breaking the law, just like breaking any other law, and should be considered equally socially unacceptable.

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  3. But if some laws are routinely broken by the vast majority of the people they apply to, it suggests that it is the law that is wrong, not the lawbreakers, and thus it is hardly surprising that being caught breaking such laws is not considered morally reprehensible.

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  4. I see your point, but are the drink-driving laws routinely broken by the vast majority of the people they apply to? My subjective impression is that most drinkers who are also drivers don't break the drink-driving laws.

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  5. Maybe I should have been more specific. Paul made a general point: "reinforcing the idea that motoring offences are breaking the law, just like breaking any other law, and should be considered equally socially unacceptable."

    My reference was to speed limits, not to the drink-driving law.

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