Why dont we fit all cars with Interlock (or similar), it would stop drink driving instantly.
As such save money within the NHS, Police time and effort catching people, cost in the courts when a DD has been caught
and most importantly it would stop people getting killed by a drink driver

obviously no one would ever disengage this device.

having been hit by a hit and run, drink driver anything to stop the pain and heart ache the victim and their families go through is for the good of humanity.

Personally I think it’s draconian – I don’t think drink driving is right, the UK’s roads are just too busy these days to allow someone to drive after 2-3 beers like they used to.

But, what difference does a few mil make? Aside from a few weeks before Xmas when the Police like to show a bit of an effort with random stops they’re not going to be able to spot someone who’s had 80mil per whatever over someone who’s had 100mil – no this will only ever be applied in the event of an accident and how on earth are we to know – you hear it all the time – “oh pint of weakish beer and I’m okay” or “had a few glass of wine 9pm last night, I’ll be okay by 10am” but really you’ve got no idea until the Police make you blow and hey presto – even though the alcohol is no longer effecting you and you weren’t to blame causing the 5mph ‘fender bender’ you’ve been caught up in you’re licence is gone and whatever else with it.

I’m not arguing against changing the limit just pointing out that the low level of traffic enforcement on UK roads is a joke. It allows a lot of really dangerous things to go unchecked. The entire attitude to driving needs changing. The Right/privilege issue needs addressing and the the punishments to drivers flouting the rules need tightening up.

mikewsmith – Member
I just dont think more police will make people safer.

More police and removing more bad drivers might help. Assessing somebody in their late teens for the next 60 years operating a large metal killing machine is a little optimistic.
Maybe, but I doubt it, personally I don’t think more police making up seatbelt charges will help all that much, bar create more distrust of the police.

police quotas are a terrible way to run a police service. (it’s one thing(among many things) I massively disagree with the SNP on, and any police I’ve spoken to entirely agree with me.)

Well, reading the posts prior to this one, it would appear that a few of the contributors are already going to change their habits.

And my actual point is of those people how many have ever been stopped on the way home? How were they caught, changing the number may stop some from chancing it but it won’t stop those who don’t think it’s a problem.

I think if the limit was reduced here (England) then I think some of those people might reconsider their position.

Plus the company itself might realise that plying clients with an illegal level of drink when you know that they drive home isn’t the most sensible course of action.

mikewsmith – Member
It allows a lot of really dangerous things to go unchecked.

Driving is dangerous, you aren’t going to legislate that to no danger.

Personally I think it’s draconian…But, what difference does a few mil make?

Well, which is it?

konabunny – Member

If it was right after, your body might not have absorbed all the alcohol at the moment you were tested.

If it was right after, he may have blown over due to the remnants of alcohol in the mouth, which is why when breathalysed the police should ensure you haven’t had a drink in the last fifteen minutes as it can give a falsely high reading.
In reality, anyone who says they lost their licence after drinking two pints is a **** liar.

Maybe, but doubt, personally I don’t think more police making up seatbelt charges will help all that much, bar create more distrust of the police.
police quotas are a terrible way to run a police service. (it’s one thing I massively disagree with the SNP on, and any police I’ve spoken to entirely agree with me.)

They could hit any quota on the M6 of a morning or the M60/62

Babies carried on laps – attempted murder
Applying makeup while driving – dangerous driving
reading the paper/meeting notes – dangerous driving
eating bowl of cereal – dangerous driving
tailgating – dangerous driving
overtaking on blind bends – dangerous driving

Whatever it is I could have filled any quota in a couple of hours, there is no need to make it up.

mikewsmith – Member
They could hit any quota on the M6 of a morning or the M60/62
Babies carried on laps – attempted murder
Applying makeup while driving – dangerous driving
reading the paper/meeting notes – dangerous driving
eating bowl of cereal – dangerous driving
tailgating – dangerous driving
overtaking on blind bends – dangerous driving

Whatever it is I could have filled any quota in a couple of hours, there is no need to make it up.They could, but when they can’t the jobworths make shit up to get ahead. I’ve spoken to polis that tell me this is the case.

Regardless beyond that, police quotas are a terrible idea as they are 1 step away from the monetisation and privatisation of the police force, and turning it into a revenue collection service..

seosamh77 – Member

Driving is dangerous

All things considered, it’s surprisingly safe. More people die from falling over than driving.

polis

It is spelled “police”, young seosamh77.
HTH.

konabunny – Member

I was breatalysed straight after 2 pints of Pedigree and passed so always used 2 pints as my limit when I drove.

If it was right after, your body might not have absorbed all the alcohol at the moment you were tested.
Fair point, it was about 15 minutes after I left the pub. But shortly after that a friend was stopped on the way to a New Year’s Eve party but the police had to run off to an urgent call and left the breathalyser on the roof of my friends car. Se he turns up at the dinner party and we have a bit of fun blowing in the breathalyser as the evening went on. The girls failed a lot quicker than the blokes, but one guy was well over the limit before he eventually failed and I had about 4 pints before I failed, but I have never driven after more than 2.

sbob – Member
seosamh77 – Member
Driving is dangerous

All things considered, it’s surprisingly safe. More people die from falling over than driving.

polis
It is spelled “police”, young seosamh77.
HTH.

Point 1 is very true, hence my reluctance to flood the streets with more law enforcers/revenue collectors.

Point 2, unfortunately, due to the lack of Scottish independence, the Glasgow Schemey dictionary hasn’t yet become law! Sometimes I forget! 😆

I think the limit is fine as-is darn sarf. I can have one beer at a pub and drive home safely 🙂

seosamh77
Driving is dangerous, you aren’t going to legislate that to no danger.

You can have a good crack. In the last 40 odd years, we’ve started legislating for drink driving, seatbelts, crash testing, traffic calming, etc etc etc.

In that time, road fatalities per mile driven have fallen by about 87%

Maybe not all of these things have had major effects on their own, but overall, it’s been a positive effort with positive results.

All smacks to me of the snp falling in line with Europe rather than the rUK.

Only if the fine/bans were equalized, as when I lived in Germany for a first offence of DD it was a months ban and had to be taken within a year and only applied in Germany – so was usually taken when on holiday in Spain 🙂

We already have many unenforced laws so why not add some more. It makes the politicians feel relevant.

But it already is enforced (>50,000 convictions pa) – it’s just that the limit is reduced.

doris5000 – Member
seosamh77
Driving is dangerous, you aren’t going to legislate that to no danger.
You can have a good crack. In the last 40 odd years, we’ve started legislating for drink driving, seatbelts, crash testing, traffic calming, etc etc etc.

In that time, road fatalities per mile driven have fallen by about 87%

Maybe not all of these things have had major effects on their own, but overall, it’s been a positive effort with positive results.No doubt that the rules set up over the last 40 years have helped massively.. But I’m clearly not against legislation, as I’d take the limit down to zero myself, but these things have to be considered. I am against too much policing, I don’t think more enforcement is needed.

Just having a quick look online, it seems that you can get a decent breathalyser for about £40.

http://www.alcosense.co.uk/alcosense-lite.html

I might get hold of one of these.
Quite often in the week, I’ll have half a bottle of wine in the evening with my wife (between perhaps 8:15-10:30). I wonder where this leaves me in the morning, blood alcohol-wise? Always assumed it was OK based on the 1hr to digest 1 unit yardstick, but that’s only an approximation. A bottle of wine is ~9 units. So 4.5 units each over an evening, means I should be good to go by the next morning, but…..it would be good to know.

Well if we adopted this ridiculous lower limit in England then my sailing club bar would close as would many of the fantastic local rural pubs. If you cant spend the day/evening engaging in an outdoor activity with your mates sailing,riding,walking etc and then have a pint at the end of it in or outside some beautiful oak beamed pub without worrying about being stopped on the way home and losing everything you have worked for then I would be incredibly depressed . The limit is just fine the way it is thanks.

The latter factors you mention will have a large effect though, I’d guess a pint will be fine.

sounds like you are being a wee bit draconian in your measuring?

True, but it puts in in perspective how little it could take. Pint on an empty stonach?

Well if we adopted this ridiculous lower limit in England then my sailing club bar would close as would many of the fantastic local rural pubs. If you cant spend the day/evening engaging in an outdoor activity with your mates sailing,riding,walking etc and then have a pint at the end of it in or outside some beautiful oak beamed pub without worrying about being stopped on the way home and losing everything you have worked for then I would be incredibly depressed . The limit is just fine the way it is thanks.

<straw man alert>
What about the poor hitmen who are unfairly out of work due to the murder limit, surely they could increace the limit to “a bit more dead” to accomodate their jobs?
</straw man alert>

My sailing club serves coke, diet coke, ginger beer, lemonade, etc, etc, probably makes more of a margin on those than the beer too.

Is there an App for working out chance of being over the limit? Enter each drink and time drunk – could work…?!

With 25% of drink drivers being repeat offenders I think tackling this group would be more worthwhile.

tinas are you a child? do you actually know what a straw man is?

I won’t dignify your idiotic statement about hitmen with an answer and yes our bar serves soft drinks but equally I can’t see any of the hairy arsed crews (most of the clientele) bothering to come in for a coke after a race for a few quid each when they can just grab one from the fridge in the boat. Draught beer on the other hand is a delight when hand pulled.

mudshark – Member
Is there an App for working out chance of being over the limit? Enter each drink and time drunk – could work…?!

Google alcohol technical defence (ATD). I guess you could get most of the way with a good app, however there a currently plenty of people on both sides of convictions who make a living out of arguing about this.

Matt

With 25% of drink drivers being repeat offenders I think tackling this group would be more worthwhile.

Sounds like they are (they’ve been caught and dealt with).

And it’s 25% of those caught, I’m sure 99.999% of offenders are people who just have a couple on riday night after work (or at the Sailing club or Golf club bar) and all of them are probably re-offenders having done it last Friday?

yes our bar serves soft drinks but equally I can’t see any of the hairy arsed crews (most of the clientele) bothering to come in for a coke after a race for a few quid each when they can just grab one from the fridge in the boat. Draught beer on the other hand is a delight when hand pulled.

I’m glad you’ve been staring at my backside, I must get my long johns stiched up.

We race, so no fridges :-p , and mines a coke.

Draught beer on the other hand is a delight when hand pulled.

Indeed it is. Just don’t drive after you’ve had some.

This SNP?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27383267

Exactly my point!

That’s a proposal from an SDLP MP-

“Mr Durkan said Northern Ireland’s drink-drive laws would be brought into line with Europe, including the Republic of Ireland.”

(Btw i’m not strictly anti snp & don’t want to get into that whole debate!)

I think legislation to protect young drivers & to target repeat offenders would be more useful..

I think Friday 12pm to Saturday 5am should be a free for all.

Well if we adopted this ridiculous lower limit in England then my sailing club bar would close as would many of the fantastic local rural pubs. If you cant spend the day/evening engaging in an outdoor activity with your mates sailing,riding,walking etc and then have a pint at the end of it in or outside some beautiful oak beamed pub without worrying about being stopped on the way home and losing everything you have worked for then I would be incredibly depressed . The limit is just fine the way it is thanks.

This sounds an awful lot like the “I’m posh so I should be allowed to do what I like” defence. 😀

If this measure turns out to reduce road casualties in Scotland then will you be in favour of it then?

I think the point of a lower limit isn’t that the lower limit itself will make much of a difference compared to the previous limit, but more that it might make some people think twice about drinking at all when they’re goind to drive.

I don’t drink at all if I’m driving (or drink more than a couple of pints or glasses of wine if I need to drive the next morning) so I can’t say it’s of concern for me – although I’d rather see heavier enforcement of whatever limit is set.

If you cant spend the day/evening engaging in an outdoor activity with your mates sailing,riding,walking etc and then have a pint at the end of it in or outside some beautiful oak beamed pub without worrying about being stopped on the way home and losing everything you have worked for then I would be incredibly depressed .

I’m sure people were saying similar back when DD laws first came out. “What do you mean I can’t drive home blotto, I’m an englishman FFS, it’s what we do!”

All smacks to me of the snp falling in line with Europe rather than the rUK.

is that a bad thing? We have the highest limit in europe I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of. OTOH it seems we do have harsher sentences than most which is something to be happy about.

Why dont we fit all cars with Interlock

same reason we don’t all have “blackboxes”, it’s against our human rights or some such bollocks. Not a bad idea tho.

Well if we adopted this ridiculous lower limit in England then my sailing club bar would close as would many of the fantastic local rural pubs. If you cant spend the day/evening engaging in an outdoor activity with your mates sailing,riding,walking etc and then have a pint at the end of it in or outside some beautiful oak beamed pub without worrying about being stopped on the way home and losing everything you have worked for then I would be incredibly depressed . The limit is just fine the way it is thanks.

As ever, Lots of people think the worst that can happen to them is to lose their licence, not kill someone due to impared reactions in a one ton lump of metal. Sad.

epicsteve – Member

I think the point of a lower limit isn’t that the lower limit itself will make much of a difference compared to the previous limit, but more that it might make some people think twice about drinking at all when they’re goind to drive.

Absolutely- the message is “don’t drink at all and drive”, it’s not “You can now only drink 5/8ths as much as you used to be able to”. It’s a much simpler message and I think probably going to be an effective one, people see wriggle room in the current rules. Oh I can have one, oh it’s ages since i had the last so I’ll be fine, oh I had something to eat, it’s not that strong a beer, I’m quite a big lad… Not “I’m fine drinking drunk” but believing (or hoping) they’re within the law.

In the sticks everyone drives to and from the pub as it`s miles .The whole of Mendip could probably get banned over a weekend

As ever, Lots of people think the worst that can happen to them is to lose their licence, not kill someone due to impared reactions in a one ton lump of metal. Sad.

Why would I be significantly more likely to kill someone after a pint?

Now that is a straw man argument.

Why would I be significantly more likely to kill someone after a pint?

beacuase alcohol impairs your functions. FACT. 😥

the whole point of the new limit, as said by me on first page and many others after is to make having alcohol and then driving unacceptable, both legally and socially.

Why ? because it is proven beyond all doubt that alcohol impairs reactions.

I, in common with many, would often in the past have a single glass of wine or bottle of beer if out, after work, or at a dinner, and then drive, but I wont now, so surely that has to be a good thing ?