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One drink helps some drivers

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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 96 ✭✭mikkael



    You sir, speak of falling into the "Irish thing", well, you've just fallen into one too - not being able not to drink.

    Yeah, I'm a Heineken shandy alcoholic. That 7up is mighty addictive ...



    I dont understand where your going with this? We should all ignore drink driving laws? :confused:

    Clarification: What I actually meant was ignoring the fact that the laws don't work as opposed to ignoring the law. It actually amounts to much the same thing in reality mind you

    Re: Insurance companies ripping us off while pretending to care about our safety, I think it's very relevant.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,815 ✭✭✭✭Anan1


    mikkael wrote: »
    Reality check again! = allowing people one drink usually leads them to have more. Obvious!
    Not to me, i'm afraid.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,102 ✭✭✭✭Drummerboy08


    mikkael wrote: »
    Man, you're all theory!

    Reality check again! = allowing people one drink usually leads them to have more. Obvious!

    So dont have "one" then. Whats so hard about that?

    Re: your invention of my 'attitude' is as previously stated. What you assume to be my attitude that is. Let's ignore the reality and keep on telling it how it should be. Clearly telling it as it is just leads to the usual Irish thing ( personalities ).

    I still dont get you. Have you been smoking something today, instead of drinking in the pub? :confused:


  • Registered Users Posts: 216 ✭✭livvy


    What is it with us and drink. It is so frustrating to hear people complaining about how the world would end if the drink driving laws were changed. We live in a developed country with taxis / people with cars. Use them. Don't go with the rural side of things argument. People in the country have cars too. It takes more organizing - i agree - to round up the reliable non drinker for the night - but is that so bad or so hard to do. I agree some can drink more than others and can be fine but the law is not tailor made for one group - its for everybody. Every body hear knows of the horrors of drink driving - anything to rid it is welcomed.


  • Posts: 24,714 [Deleted User]


    livvy wrote: »
    What is it with us and drink. It is so frustrating to hear people complaining about how the world would end if the drink driving laws were changed. We live in a developed country with taxis / people with cars. Use them. Don't go with the rural side of things argument. People in the country have cars too. It takes more organizing - i agree - to round up the reliable non drinker for the night - but is that so bad or so hard to do. I agree some can drink more than others and can be fine but the law is not tailor made for one group - its for everybody. Every body hear knows of the horrors of drink driving - anything to rid it is welcomed.

    It is possible to get taxi's etc home from the pub however my argument against changing the law is that it is going to make it more difficult for people who want to go out and drink, get home in a taxi, walk etc but then the want to go use there car the next morning, I don't mean at 7am but at 10 or 11 maybe on a Sunday morning or any other day. Even with the current limit it is a risk driving at this time and with a further reduction it will be a joke.

    Some are saying don't drink if you have to drive the next day but I know as far as I'm concerned I almost always want/have to drive at a reasonable hour the next day for any number of different reasons and I am not going to be dictated to when I can and cannot drink.

    It basically boils down to fact that in my opinion it is ridiculous to compare someone who comes out of a pub at night with drink taken to someone driving the next day. Yes they may have alcohol in there system but I refuse to believe that after a nights sleep, food, shower etc that it has anywhere near the same effect*. An awful lot of people I know feel the very same way and none of us like the fact that when we go about our business late on a Sunday morning(or any other morning) we have to worry about coming across a checkpoint.

    *I'm not talking about drinking till 7am in the morning. I would be talking about going out having a good skip of pints a few shots and be in bed by 3am and then driving at say 11am the next day.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    ... I am not going to be dictated to when I can and cannot drink.

    You're not being told when you can or cannot drink; you're being told when you can or cannot drive.


    If you're worried about being over the limit the next morning, there's a simple solution - drink less! Or is the only object of a night out to get drunk?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,822 ✭✭✭✭EPM


    It basically boils down to fact that in my opinion it is ridiculous to compare someone who comes out of a pub at night with drink taken to someone driving the next day. Yes they may have alcohol in there system but I refuse to believe that after a nights sleep, food, shower etc that it has anywhere near the same effect

    Obviously the alcohol levels would obviously be higher straight out of the pub. But you may still have alcohol in your blood the following morning and thats the main point. Higher levels of alcohol have been proven to have an affect on driving performance. Doesn't matter how much sleep or food you have, it will still have an affect, whether the person realizes it or not.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,502 ✭✭✭Zube


    livvy wrote: »
    Every body hear knows of the horrors of drink driving - anything to rid it is welcomed.

    No, some things are more welcome than others.

    Enforcing the existing limit is something that would really lower deaths, but it would take serious Garda resources and cost a lot of money.

    Lowering the limit from 80 to 50 is easy and cheap, the authorities can make a fuss about it to show that they are doing something, and it will have little or no effect on deaths or accidents.

    I'm not against a 50 limit, but it's a waste of time when so many people ignore the existing limit because of a lack of enforcement.


  • Registered Users Posts: 216 ✭✭livvy


    1. Zero limit to permitted alcohol in blood - not to catch people out - it is to send out a basic message - drink driving will not be tolerated. To allow a low level is basically giving the message that it is ok to have one, or if your body is able to absorb it two, drinks and drive. You may be over the limit or you may not - find out at the check point - zero limit to me means you are over the limit regardless of what you drink. It is a level playing field to all shapes, sizes regardless of male or female - fair law.

    2. Next day driving - the law is not, in my opinion, designed to catch out the normal few pint drinkers on a friday night. The serious amount of beers / shots is the problem - reaction times, concentration, fatigue etc. If you drink within reason this will not pose as a problem. Getting absolutely locked and you are in difficulty - valid concern to have this person behind the wheel at lunch time when alcohol is still there.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 762 ✭✭✭irisheddie85


    It doesn't matter what the limit is if it is not enforced. I'm from a rural area but never drink and drive. In 3 years I saw 1 checkpoint in my local town.
    If the gaurds were seen in the area the news would spread to the entire area so no one could be caught.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 96 ✭✭mikkael


    mikkael wrote: »

    So dont have "one" then. Whats so hard about that?

    Nothing for me personally, but again you're making assumptions in order to try and find a point. I think you're doing a bit of trolling here tbh.

    I still dont get you. Have you been smoking something today, instead of drinking in the pub? :confused:

    Nope. See my reply above. Usually when people post childish comments like this it's a sign of boredom. Are you bored?

    You can have your law as much as you want, but if the majority of people ( those who admit to it - none ) ignore the drink drive laws in the country what's the point? You keep missing this point, in order to keep it going I think.

    Drag yourself away from the computer and go for a stroll ( as opposed to a troll ). It'll do you good.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,102 ✭✭✭✭Drummerboy08


    mikkael wrote: »
    Nothing for me personally, but again you're making assumptions in order to try and find a point. I think you're doing a bit of trolling here tbh.

    Sorry. I have more than 2,500 posts, most of which were made in this forum. How am I trolling? Any of the established posters in here, including mods, will vouch for me.

    I'd actually say its you who's doing the trolling here.

    Nope. See my reply above. Usually when people post childish comments like this it's a sign of boredom. Are you bored?

    You can have your law as much as you want, but if the majority of people ( those who admit to it - none ) ignore the drink drive laws in the country what's the point? You keep missing this point, in order to keep it going I think.

    Drag yourself away from the computer and go for a stroll ( as opposed to a troll ). It'll do you good.

    Im not making any assumptions. If you want to drink when you go to the pub, take some easy steps to ensure you dont have the drive your vehicle the next morning. Get a lift down, leave your car at home, and get a taxi if needs be.

    If you need your car, do away with the drink.

    Its a bit of common sense, something which I feel your posts lack.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 96 ✭✭mikkael


    mikkael wrote: »


    Any of the established posters in here, including mods, will vouch for me.

    Lol you must by alright so. Like minded people stick up for you, wow. Everyone knows that boards is more dependent on politics than the quality of discussion anyway.



    Im not making any assumptions.

    If you want to drink when you go to the pub, take some easy steps to ensure you dont have the drive your vehicle the next morning.
    Get a lift down, leave your car at home, and get a taxi if needs be.
    If you need your car, do away with the drink.
    Its a bit of common sense, something which I feel your posts lack.

    I think you need a dictionary. Look up the word "assumption".

    LOL ... I could do the same as you, and say "now drummerboy08, don't drink and drive and then come on boards and lie that you don't", but that'd mean making assumptions all over the place just like you ( though it's more likely to actually be true )

    You don't really have a point. All you can do is make stupid assumptions and keep telling us all how it should be. You don't talk much about yourself, do you? 2,500 posts of verbal diahorrea by the look of it.

    It seems to annoy you that I don't drink drive but yet have a view alternate to your uneducated and one - dimensional one.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,815 ✭✭✭✭Anan1


    mikkael wrote: »
    You don't really have a point. All you can do is make stupid assumptions and keep telling us all how it should be. You don't talk much about yourself, do you? 2,500 posts of verbal diahorrea by the look of it.
    Enough, come back in a week if you've learnt to be civil by then.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,423 ✭✭✭pburns


    Ooooh it's getting heated in here!
    Aard wrote: »
    If you're worried about being over the limit the next morning, there's a simple solution - drink less! Or is the only object of a night out to get drunk?

    See it's comments like this (and the no. of thumbs-ups it gets) that leads me to think many people on here don't just have a problem with drink-driving - they have a chip on their shoulder about drinking FULL STOP...

    When I go out, I like to drink - 6 or 7 pints at least by the time everyone gets a round in, maybe a short to polish the night off. I never drive before 2pm the next day. Now by the standards of some in here I'd probably be deemed a raving alcoholic and a social pariah but I have tested on a home kit a couple of times in the past and am confident I'd be under the current 80mg limit. As for the 50mg limit or the zero-limit some hardliners suggest - who knows... I'd probably be OK for work by Monday morning:p...

    Maybe I'll give up the drink and join Dry****es Anonymous:rolleyes:...

    If you want a zero alcohol/driving policy then fine - then lets just ban all those with colds, headaches, arseaches, period pains, stress, disabilities and Leitrim people off the roads as well. 'Cos the everyday maladies we all face have about as much effect on our driving as a trace element of alcohol from the night before...

    Of course these everyday issues are neither measurable nor controllable. Nor are they on the hit-list of the furrow-browed PC police.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,815 ✭✭✭✭Anan1


    I'm not averse to a rake of pints myself, but the simple fact is that if your BAC is over 0.8 then your driving is objectively impaired, regardless of whether it's that night, the following morning or a week hence. On which subject, an interesting thing happened to me a couple of weeks back. I had about a 1/2 bottle of wine in a friends house over a period of an hour or so, set off for home in the car maybe an hour and a half later, hit a DD checkpoint on my way home. I was confident enough that I was under the limit, but still a bit nervous as I could feel the alcohol in my system. I blew a zero, make of that what you will.


  • Posts: 24,714 [Deleted User]


    Anan1 wrote: »
    I had about a 1/2 bottle of wine in a friends house over a period of an hour or so, set off for home in the car maybe an hour and a half later, hit a DD checkpoint on my way home. I was confident enough that I was under the limit, but still a bit nervous as I could feel the alcohol in my system. I blew a zero, make of that what you will.

    I have seen a friend of mine who was on a massive session into the early hours and then had a pint the next morning at about 12 for the cure. A short time later we arrived at a DD checkpoint and he also blew zero. He is a small thin lad aswell.

    I cannot understand it. He should have been well over from the night before never mind the pint he just had.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,025 ✭✭✭Tipp Man


    David Quinn: Let's get balance right in drink-drive debate



    By David Quinn
    Friday October 30 2009

    I have to confess to a small amount of sympathy for the TDs and senators who are rebelling against proposals to further reduce the drink-driving limit.
    Their opponents are presenting this as a completely black-and-white, open-and-shut case. But that's not fair because the issue is more complicated than they say.
    For outright supporters of the proposed reduction, things couldn't be clearer. Reducing the limit from the already low level of roughly a pint to roughly half a pint will save lives. That's all there is to it.
    Anything that saves lives has to be supported. Any politician who opposes a reduction obviously doesn't care if people die and is only chasing votes.
    Again, this is way too simple and here's why. If we really wanted to reduce road fatalities to zero, we would ban driving altogether. But no-one proposes this. Why not? If saving lives is the one and only consideration then you would have to ban driving. But we don't ban driving and the reason for this is obvious. The social, personal and economic benefits of allowing people to drive far outweigh the costs. What we try to do instead is minimise the cost of driving -- not just the risk to life and limb, but the environmental costs -- as much as possible.
    That's why everyone supports speed limits, curbs on drink driving, compulsory seat belts, unleaded petrol and so on.
    But at the same time, no one supports cutting the speed limit on motorways to 20kmh even though it would undoubtedly save lives, and even though there would be no problem tracking down a scientist who could show exactly how many lives a year such a move would save. No one supports a 20kmh speed limit because it would be going too far. It would strike the wrong balance between road safety and personal freedom.
    So what about drink-driving limits? Again, no one opposes some limits, so the real question is what limit should be struck? Some people say the limit should be zero. Others believe it should remain at the current limit of 80mg. A few probably think that is already too low, while still others, including Transport Minister Noel Dempsey, want it reduced to 50mg.
    The big argument against further reducing the drink-driving limit is that it will impose unacceptable social costs. The argument that it will lead to further rural isolation can't be airily and contemptuously dismissed as if it simply doesn't count for anything.
    The fact that rural pubs are a dying species is of no particular consequence unless it is having other, knock-on effects. It's not for nothing that rates of suicide are higher among isolated farmers than among the general population. Road accidents can certainly kill, but so can isolation. And that's without mentioning the depression caused by it.
    The prospect that rural isolation, and all the problems associated with that, will be made worse by the proposed reduction in the drink-driving limit has to be taken into account by its proponents.
    For example, has a study ever been conducted into the effects of very strict drink-driving limits on rural isolation? Has it made it worse? Or has it had no effect? We don't know.
    Also, it is not as though the decline of the pub has reduced the amount of drinking overall. In fact, there has been a big increase and maybe the two are partly connected. Maybe a lot of people are drinking four pints at home every night instead of one down at the pub.
    The possibility that there might be a connection between increased drinking and the decline of the pub should be investigated as well because if this is the case then all the other health and social problems associated with excessive drinking are going to get much worse, not better.
    And by the way, hasn't it occurred to anyone in this debate that most traffic accidents are caused by men in their 20s and not elderly farmers driving home from the pub at night?
    Perhaps the real answer to road fatalities is to ban men aged 18-25 from driving altogether?
    The reaction of the media to the mini-rebellion by rural TDs and senators to the proposed reduction in the drink-driving limit has been entirely predictable and reeks of urban versus rural snobbery as rural TDs go on radio with broad country accents only to be sneered at because they lack the smooth, polished arguments of urban 'sophisticates'.
    It is also predictable that there is much more support for the proposed reduction in urban areas than in rural ones. Rural isolation by definition is not a problem in urban areas and most people in towns and cities are in walking distance of pubs.
    But whatever your position on this issue, can we allow that it is not a black or white one and that reasonable people are allowed to have differing opinions on it without being shouted down and demonised as apologists for road killings?

    http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/david-quinn-lets-get-balance-right-in-drinkdrive-debate-1929015.html

    A very interesting article in the Indo which people who are trying to bring in this limit should really read and consider. For a change its logical and well thought out and really it hard to argue with what he says


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 215 ✭✭Toyota_Avensis


    A new law (or revised law) backing this theory would be madness.
    It would be abused...

    Anyway this is 21st Century Ireland, shouldn't be any excuse for having to drink drive. Taxi's are on hand 24-7! Car Pooling with a non-drinker / designated driver or sharing a taxi isn't costly.

    And for those in Rural Areas, some Pubs are offering a drop-home scheme to incourage you to not drink and drive...

    Helps some drivers?... Maybe,
    But that doesn't insure any safety to other innocent drivers on the road...


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,815 ✭✭✭✭Anan1


    I have seen a friend of mine who was on a massive session into the early hours and then had a pint the next morning at about 12 for the cure. A short time later we arrived at a DD checkpoint and he also blew zero. He is a small thin lad aswell.

    I cannot understand it. He should have been well over from the night before never mind the pint he just had.
    I think the moral of the story is that you have to be quite impaired to fail the test.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 182 ✭✭akaredtop


    I always drove better after six pints.:D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 475 ✭✭Richie15


    I was just reading a book on driving in Europe last night. Can't remember specifically which country this was, but they have a two-tier system. You're not allowed any alcohol in your system, but there's different penalties for being over or under 80mg (or 50, not sure which).

    If you're under the limit there's an on-the-spot fine, but if you're over then there's a ban and a prison term. This is one way to stop people driving home, because you'd be guaranteed at least a fine, but they could still take the chance driving in the morning if they want, knowing there's a good chance they wouldn't be branded a criminal for having a couple of pints.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    pburns wrote: »
    See it's comments like this (and the no. of thumbs-ups it gets) that leads me to think many people on here don't just have a problem with drink-driving - they have a chip on their shoulder about drinking FULL STOP...
    I don't have a chip on my shoulder about drinking - I average a bottle of wine a week, myself. It's just that I don't drink to get drunk; I drink because I enjoy the taste. Just because I don't get wasted, I'm suddendly thought of as being on a crudsade.


    Also, your comment about Alcoholics Anonymous really just shows your own ignorance.


    I'm not suggesting you give up drinking - I'm suggesting you drink as much as you like, but at least wait until it's out of your system before you start driving.


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