[Article] 99% favour reduced drink driving level

buckfast4me

Stark wrote: »

Plenty of things are unsafe but legal.

True, but driving under the legal limit is considered safe by the Irish legal system whether you personally agree with the safety aspect of driving at 0.79mg blood alcohol or not. Let me ask you - what do you think they base the blood alcohol limits on.. numbered balls from a drum?

Stark

If it was considered safe, then they wouldn't be considering reducing it now would they? They're saying you won't be prosecuted, they're not saying "go ahead, we promise nothing bad will happen".

buckfast4me

Section 49 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 as inserted by Section 10 of the Road Traffic Act 1994 created four separate drink driving offences in Ireland. These offences are as follows:

• An offence of driving or attempting to drive a mechanically propelled vehicle in a public place while under the influence of an intoxicant to such an extent as to be incapable of having proper control of the vehicle. (Section 49(1));

Let me put this in plain english for you:

- "incapable of having proper control of the vehicle" is defined as having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.80mg or over.

Therefore, when they test people who are at 0.40, 0.50, 0.60, etc they are presumed to be still capable of having proper control of their vehicles. Otherwise they would be arrested and charged. You can't argue with the law.

buckfast4me

Stark wrote: »

They're saying you won't be prosecuted, they're not saying "go ahead, we promise nothing bad will happen".

Well at the moment if they test you and your reading is 0.60 for example, nothing (legally) bad will happen to you. That is exactly what they are saying. I have an uncle who (I was in the car with at the time) tested 0.5 something and was allowed drive on exactly the same as someone who tested 0.00.

buckfast4me

Stark wrote: »

If it was considered safe, then they wouldn't be considering reducing it now would they?

I would rather go by the CURRENT legal definition of what is considered safe, not your opinion of what is considered safe. I don't even know who you are or what you do, but I somehow doubt you are a legal expert or working in law.

Propellerhead

Stark wrote: »

Massive :rolleyes:

I'm sorry but all I'm hearing here is "You want us to obey the law? You're going to have to pay us off".

Roll your eyes all you like, being an internet warrior doesn't change real people.

Lennoxschips

0.0 is the safest. 0.1 is more dangerous than 0.0, etc. 0.8 is more dangerous than 0.7. Just because the law says 0.8 it doesn't mean that everything below 0.8 is safe. Somebody who had no alcohol intake will be significantly safer on the road than somebody with 0.8, even if the second guy is borderline legal. There's no disputing that. Every drop of alcohol increases your danger level.

It's also worth noting that Ireland's legal limit is the highest in Europe. The government's own National Strategic Task Force report on alcohol recommended lowering the limit to 0.5, in line with the rest of the EU, but it hasn't been done yet, probably due to gombeemism.

vinylrules

It's interesting to compare the above mentioned survey with this one carried out yesterday by RTE where only 22% of respondents were favour of reducing the limit.

http://www.rte.ie/news/pollarchive.html

Given that RTE is a far more independant organastion than PARC who came up with the 99% figure, it's probably a much more accurate reflection of the public feeling on this matter. Funny though how you don't see any headlines in the papers along the lines of, "68% Against Reduction in The Alcohol Limit".

Carawaystick

Ireland and Britain have higher blood alcohol limits than most of Europe but have much harsher penalties than many countries. in Belgium, a reading sightly above the limit has a penalty of immediate confiscation of driving licence until you sober up - a bit shorter than the two year ban here.

Britain has one of the safest road safety records and the same BAC levels permitted as here. this would suggest BAC limits aren't as important as they are made out to be.

from the RSA's site
Driver/ rider alcohol was a factor in 28% of fatal crashes

Scientific studies tell us that driver fatigue is as dangerous as driving when over the drink drive limit, and could be a contributory factor in up to 20% of driver deaths in Ireland,”

the rsa's advice is to have a coupla cups of coffee and maybe stretch. and only not to drive in extreme tiredness.

compared to the whole never drink one drink and drive guff which is only 40% more dangerous, I think it appears that the rsa's resources seem misplaced.

the whole road safety debate is surrounded in a load of guff because there are not enough data about the factors causing crashes and these are replaced with spin.

vinylrules

One thing is certain - this debate is going to get more heated! I see in the Irish Times letters page today that the Donegal Coroner (the one who said lowering the limits will make no difference) has put it up to the RSA, Gardai etc to come up with the figures to prove him wrong. He also had a go at PARC and others for putting out misleading figures. There was a pretty good piece in Hot Press a while back that proved fairly convincingly that the alcohol/road safety issue was being hyped up.

On a separate note I see that road fatalaties for March are way down on last year - amazing what happens when you actually enforce current laws instead of constantly whinging on about stricter legislation!

(I wouldn't have said this a few months ago but If Paddy Power were offering decent odds on the limit not being lowered in the next two years I'd put a €50 spot on it!)

Lennoxschips

Britain has one of the safest road safety records and the same BAC levels permitted as here. this would suggest BAC limits aren't as important as they are made out to be.

The Netherlands has safer roads again and a lower limit than the UK.

Driver/ rider alcohol was a factor in 28% of fatal crashes

Scientific studies tell us that driver fatigue is as dangerous as driving when over the drink drive limit, and could be a contributory factor in up to 20% of driver deaths in Ireland,”

the rsa's advice is to have a coupla cups of coffee and maybe stretch. and only not to drive in extreme tiredness.

compared to the whole never drink one drink and drive guff which is only 40% more dangerous, I think it appears that the rsa's resources seem misplaced.

the whole road safety debate is surrounded in a load of guff because there are not enough data about the factors causing crashes and these are replaced with spin.

It says that 28% of fatal crashes involve alcohol. Is that difficult to understand? 28% of fatal crashes involve alcohol. 28% of fatal crashes involve alcohol. 28% of fatal crashes involve alcohol. 28% of fatal crashes involve alcohol.

If people didn't drink and drive, there would be 28% less fatal road accidents.

And yeah, don't drive when you're tired either. Take rests, etc.

vinylrules

Lennoxschips wrote: »

The Netherlands has safer roads again and a lower limit than the UK.



It says that 28% of fatal crashes involve alcohol. Is that difficult to understand? 28% of fatal crashes involve alcohol. 28% of fatal crashes involve alcohol. 28% of fatal crashes involve alcohol. 28% of fatal crashes involve alcohol.

If people didn't drink and drive, there would be 28% less fatal road accidents.

And yeah, don't drive when you're tired either. Take rests, etc.

This is just not true. According to the RSA's own figures (Bedford Report) there was alcohol present in 28% of fatally injured drivers. That doesn't mean they were responsible for the accident. In many cases the responsibility is not determined. For example, if a sober driver runs a red light and smashes into someone who happens to have any amount of alcohol - repeat any amount - and both drivers die, that is considered to be two alcohol related road deaths. The responsibility in this case is 100% down to the sober driver who crashed the red light not the law-abiding driver who happened to have a small amount of residual alcohol in their system.

Alcohol was irrelevant in these deaths - even though the statistics would like you to believe otherwise.

Victor

buckfast4me wrote: »

Legally drink - why 0.80 though, why not 1.6 or 3.2? Because those limits would make it unsafe to drive. The legal limit is obviously based heavily on a safety factor - what else would it be based on? They didn't just pull the figure out of the air.

The figure was based on a certain perception by politicians, who number convicted drink drivers and publicans amongst their number.

buckfast4me wrote: »

True, but driving under the legal limit is considered safe by the Irish legal system whether you personally agree with the safety aspect of driving at 0.79mg blood alcohol or not.

No, it doesn't say it is safe as such, just not prosecutable under that section. Someone who is intolerant of alcohol or someone with alcohol + another drug in their system might be prosecuted under a different section - for being intoxicated.

Carawaystick

Lennoxchips, my point is that there's eena sustained campaign of education to the dangers of driving under the influence of alcohol and a sustained campaign of enforcement to prevent something that is involved in 28% of fatal crashes.
yet, driving while tired causes 20% of fatal acidents and it is not subjected to anything like he same level of enforcement, education to the dangers of it, it s socially acceptable to drive while tired.

even your post doesn't deal with the issue seriously. "take rests etc."

given your stance on drink driving, would you not think a stance like
"Never, Ever drive while tired?" would suit the seriousness of the issue?

where do you suggest people take rests if they get tired while driving on a motorway?

Stark

Two wrongs don't make a right. As for taking rests on the motorway, you're pretty much preaching to the converted on this forum when it comes to the issue of lack of motorway service areas.