Drink Driving Proposals To Upset Drinkers

Wednesday, 18. February 2009

A recent poll showed that 61% of motorists would not welcome a drop of acceptable drink driving levels from 80mg to the more common 50mg but that is probably because of the draconian punishment handed out if over the limit. If you are guilty of driving even slightly over the limit in the UK you are automatically facing a 12 month ban whilst in some countries in the EU the chances of being caught in the first place are pretty remote and when you are caught in say France you could be facing a ban as short as 7 days. So whilst I don’t condone drink driving and don’t do so myself one sometimes worries about the double standards imposed when deciding upon the punishment. For example the same research carried out in the UK to assess peoples ability to drive when drinking and recommended that 80mg was the point at which it became dangerous to drive was also used to decide how dangerous it was to drive whilst using a mobile phone as well as suffering fatigue through tiredness. As a result it has been shown that driving whilst using a mobile phone or whilst tired is more impairing than driving whilst just over the legal drink drive limit and yet no one would expect an automatic 12 month ban for either of those offences. Of course we should crack down on drink driving or any other activity that can cost lives but we should also make the punishment proportionate. Gets off soap box! By Graham Hill