Limiting blood alcohol levels for drivers, both young and old, is
unquestionably a sensible policy, but setting different limits for different
drivers - with zero tolerance for young people - complicates the issue and
will be fundamentally unworkable.
Countries that set varying limits for different ages of drivers (including
Australia, Austria, Canada, New Zealand and the United States) don’t tend to
use zero tolerance but generally set their blood alcohol content (BAC)
limits low to prevent other variables corrupting results. Otherwise there is
the risk that young people will be charged or fined for using mouthwash or
eating an alcoholic chocolate.
Zero tolerance targets people with comparatively safe levels of alcohol in
their blood, rather than punishing those who represent a genuine threat to
their fellow drivers.
Studies conducted in the US and Canada have concluded that the majority of
fatal road accidents are caused by a hard core of drinkers. One widely cited
study found that more than 65 per cent of drinking driver fatalities were
caused by drivers with more than 150mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood –
almost double the legal limit of 80mg in Britain. The study also found that
more than 20 per cent of alcohol-related accidents were caused by drivers
with previous convictions. These are the people the Government needs to
target with education and punishment.
If the Government must legislate, then reducing the national legal limit would
be more workable and more sensible. According to Alcohol Concern, a national
agency concerned with alcohol misuse, the relative risk of a drink-driving
accident increases significantly when a driver's BAC rises above 50mg per
100ml. Alcohol Concern is therefore campaigning to lower the UK limit to 50
mg.
Far more effective than legislation aimed at criminalising relatively small
amounts of alcohol in the bloodstream would be to increase spending on
advertisements which urge people to limit how much they drink before
driving. Shock-tactic advertising campaigns in Australia have been shown to
contribute to overall driver awareness, and campaigns in the UK have been
awarded internationally for their powerful messages.
As part of a broader health initiative aimed at teen binge drinking, drug
taking and unsafe sex there is an intuitive logic to advising young people
not to get behind the wheel drunk. But in practice, zero tolerance is
unlikely to get to the heart of the problem of drunk driving: legislation
should target offenders, not age groups.
Drivers of 17-24: 86% rate themselves "good" /"very good" drivers. They are 5 times as likely to drink-drive, and 7 times as likely to crash than 30somethings. I'd say 'you do the maths', but that's probably beyond the current syllabus.
ktpossum, Bedford, UK
Donaldson's proposals were ludicrous. >50mg alcohol/100ml blood in HIS bloodstream would be just as dangerous as in anyone else's. But I suppose he thinks drink-driving on an expensive single malt is OK; it's the new-fangled cheap lager favoured by the 'youth' that he can't stand...
John, London,
Speaking as a "Young motorist" i think this is getting beyond a joke. we get penalised for insurance, "randomly" pulled over to check types / wheels / tints etc...
the majority of older drivers i have come across pose more danger to the public than younger drivers as they have slower reaction time
Ash, Solihull, UK
Zero is stupid. Even airline pilots are allowed a figure of 20 otherwise they would get done for having had an orange juice for breakfast.
Greg, W, U.K.
An extremely sensible article by Arion MacNicoll; The severe penalties and detection effort (breathalyser) that has been attached to drinking and driving has had the effect of pushing young people into drug-taking. - which cannot be detected by the brethalyser. Drugs are fuelling the knifings.
John Harvey, London, England