Friday, 3. September 2010
The Government has revealed that drink drive deaths dropped by 5% last year from 400 in 2008 to 380 in 2009. Has the message finally started to get through? Or could it be that last year we were in the grip of a recession and people couldn’t afford the booze or if they did they didn’t go out they simply stayed in and drank indoors? Hopefully it’s because people understand the need to not drink and drive. Serious injured casualties, resulting from drink driving, fell also from 1,620 to Read more »
Wednesday, 4. March 2009
Specialist law firm, Driving Defences LLP have said that thousands of convictions of failing to provide a specimen could be overturned due to questions over the reliability of the police intoximeter machine. They brought a successful case in which it was proven that due to an error made by the police, a defendant could not possibly have provided a sample of breath. Martin Hammond, a solicitor at the practice, said Read more »
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 Read more »
Tuesday, 20. January 2009
1 in 12 seventeen to twenty five year old drivers don’t believe that they will ever get caught when drink driving compared to 1 in 25 older drivers. These findings were the result of a survey carried out amongst 4,000 drivers by safety charity BRAKE and Green Flag Motoring Assistance. Safety organisations have been pushing to extend police powers to enable them to breathalyse drivers without Read more »
Thursday, 4. December 2008
With Christmas approaching attitudes are now changing towards drinking and driving according to the AA (that’s Automobile Association not Alcoholics Anonymous) who carried out a survey amongst motorists and found that two thirds would notify the police if someone they knew drove under the influence of alcohol. There is also likely to be a change in European law soon following Read more »
Monday, 4. August 2008
When I first started driving I drove an Austin Nash-Metropolitan, a rather cool car with a bench seat, column gearchange, low slung windows that you could really lean out of and wait for it – a built in valve radio that could pick up the pirates a treat although it did take a trip of more than 20 minutes to warm up! I could snuggle up to the latest squeeze whilst driving with my right arm nearly scraping the road whilst squeeling round corners on two remoulds a cross ply and a radial (Pirelli – naturally) having been to a disco and drunk to the point of being probably twice the legal drink drive limit by today’s standards then believing that I could drive at Read more »
Sunday, 8. June 2008
The Association Of Chief Police Officers are pushing to have the drink drive limit reduced from 80 milligrams to 50 milligrams in order to bring it into line with most of Europe. They admitted that the message seemed to have been received by young drivers but that it was now time to refresh that message. Another factor is that many British travellers to Europe are not aware of the differences in drink driving levels and with the possibility of drivers losing their licences in the UK as a result of drink driving in the EC drivers should become accustomed to drinking less if they are to drive abroad.