Using your attempts to wind me up to expose the inconsistencies in your arguments and reasoning. The limits are for practical and judicial reasons. Many countries have decided the 80mg limit still used in the UK was too high, resulted in too many avoidable collisions

What ?? I have no idea what that means.

I know what the limits are there for, and I have said so all along. I am also saying that I don't have sufficient evidence to decide on what the limits should be. I do however know that D & D gets much more attention than other road killers like for example driving whilst using your phone.

It is a given that driving whilst on the phone impairs to a similar degree to driving marginally over the DD limit. So for example show me a case where a driver not involved in any accident has been stopped and as a result given a one year ban and substantial fine.

I'm not arguing that D & D is not serious, I'm not even arguing that the law should be more lenient, merely that there are other equally dangerous things that are not given the same attention.

Not sure why thats so difficult to grasp.

Accepting TJ's example and accepting 84% are mutually incompatible Bandit.

No it isn't.

I wholly accept that relatively small amounts of alcohol can effect your judgement. However, I am willing to wait for evidence to support the case for reducing the level before I presume to know more than the DoT on the subject. Simple, compatible and not mutually exclusive.

Edukator, what you say is self evident, except insomuch that you are assuming that "no record" supports your argument, which is fundamentally flawed. Not only that it is also making the assumption that all recorded levels of alcohol are a contributary factor. That is the whole argument about having a limit. For example a considerable number of medicines contain measurable amounts of alcohol, as do mouth washes etc etc, but how does the fact that you might have washed your mouth out and it can be measured in your blood impact on the outcome of an accident? In France the adjudication is that 29% of accidents have alcohol as a contributary factor, and thats with their lower limit. So that still leaves 71% that don't.

You don't have the information to judge anymore than I do, and that is all I am saying about the stats, alongside that the fact that there are many other factors in Road fatalities as outlined in the OP which deserve equal amounts of effort to reduce them. So I really don't see where you are going with this.

No argument with that TJ, but thats not whats being said here.

The stats I'm quoting are the DOT's figures for deaths caused by D & D, as stated in law in this country. There are no proper stats kept outside of that, so any statement to the contrary is pure guesswork. In the meantime, 84% of road deaths are attributed to other factors. On top of that the majority of the inof and links posted by Edukator are Frecnh and their situation is entirely different from the UK, where we have taken the issue of D & D far more seriously than they have for a very long time.

I have, now can you please show me supporting evidence of that assertion?

Sighs……

Supporting evidence for that assertion please.

I think your point is hard to argue. I have no doubt that pretty much everyone else on here will tell you that anytime they have been driving and involved in an accident where the Police are called they have been breath tested. So I'm hard pressed to understand where you are getting your perspective from.

With respect, that is not the point. The point you were making is an assumption that far less than 16% of drivers on the road have taken a drink. You had nothing to support that point at all, and there is no qualititive evidence to support it either way. You were using that assumption to contest my contention that whilst 16% is a significant proportion of deaths, 84% of deaths are caused by other factors. Which is a FACT!

You can faff about with the numbers and come up with any conclusion you like, but I think you will find that the specifics of what I have said will remain an irrefutable fact.

Old and smelling slightly of urine And part owner of something similar to this

It is different but its the proportion of offenders (low) to consequences (high) thats the point

No its different in that with a similar population France managed to rack up 4602 road deaths in 2007 of which some 1334 were attributed to alcohol, almost 30% as opposed to the UK with just 430 and 16% respectively. So clearly the circumstances are very different and you just cannot attribute the same charactersitics to what is a clearly different situation.

Thats the point, D & D is clearly not right, of that there is no question. However, in this country it is nowhere near as serious a problem as it is in France and there are many other issues also deserving of the attention that D & D currently gets.

No it isn't France has a much different problem with drink driving than the UK.

gonefishin – Member
Berm Bandit I don't think you fully understand the statistics on this one

A tad patronising if you don't mind me pointing that out. I think you'll find everyone else is making sweeping assumptions if you care to read the thread. For instance this one :-

Yes, the real reveal would be the number of accidents resultant of people having had a drink but not being over the current limit.

So thats everyone else then, as I suspect you'll find pretty much everyone else who has had an accident has partaken of alcohol at some point and are not currently over the limit. THINK ABOUT IT!!

as I'm pretty sure that the number of drunk drivers on the road is much lower than 16%.

(Thats the sweeping assumption with nothing at all to back it up) and heres the conclusion being drawn from said sweeping assumption, all nicely done so as to suggest it as a fact

So a small group of drivers are causing proportionally more deaths.

So here we have a classic case of a sweeping assumption being made. I would respectfully suggest that it is you who don't fully understand anything, including what you yourself have written.

you're a c**t if you do it, and a silly c**t for trying to condone it

Very sorry to hear about your brother barnsleymitch. Fully understand why you would feel that way, however, I don't think you'll find that either I or anyone else has at any point condoned it. For my part I lost my 28 year old nephew in a motorcyle accident relatively recently, and as a result I seriously object to the concept that people seem to think that D & D and speeding are the only serious causes of death on the roads worth spending £100's of millions of pounds on. So the sentiment does in fact cut both ways.

Not sure what a large proportion means, but the proportion is in fact just shy of 16% which is not a large proportion in my book, significant maybe, but not large.

The real issue is that all of these deaths are tragedies, but the vast majority, i.e. 84% are not caused by D & D, but that is the one which is a social pariah, whilst people flippantly skip over the others that zokes has highlighted above.

That is the point skidster. Causing death whilst driving should be the pariah, not merely D & D

Could I just throw into the fray the fact that overtaking a cyclist on a bend is also a voluntary act and also kills many people.

Also bald statistics do not tell the full story. Of the 2724 (has risen by 6 since yesterday), approx 130 are cyclists. As there are substantially less cyclists on the road than motor vehicles and those cyclists travel substantially less miles than motor vehicles do on average, it is reasonable to argue that cycling deaths are in fact a bigger issue than drink driving, but they do not get anything like the level of attention.

In that I am fully in agreement with Zokes, that in fact drink driving occupies a disproportionately large amount of the effort to minimise road deaths. There are pleanty of other significant areas that require simialr attention.

Drive pissed you know it makes sense! 😉

Acceptable drink levels for driving should be 0mg, no grey area then imho

Quite the reverse actually, thats why they have a limit, similar in fact to allowing a 10% tolerance on speeding to remove any potential dispute.

It does however result in more death, serious injury and misery than all the other despicable crimes humble citizens commit put together.

Again not true, this year so far 2718 people have been killed on the road and less than 500 of those have been attributed to drink driving. Therefore it seems fair to suppose that 2200 odd are attributable to sober drivers. However this receives far less attention and isn't "Sexy" politically so is often simply overlooked as an issue.

UPdate on this sorry tale.

Got home last night, checked in with HMV, and in fact I misunderstood the situation. The guy stipped the pump out of the system, found clogged pipes around the pump, flushed them through and reinstalled it all. Total cost £45. Would have been plus £90 for a pump, but no pump was actually required.

Everything lovely and toasty again last night, and a bottle of Alf's favourite tipple is on the way as I type this. Hurrah for honest plumbers.

PS Tried the well thats £2500 for the bike kitty then? …… didn't work, apparently shes got Alf to quote for a new bathroom… strangely comes out at £2500 too apparently 😐

maybe we should pre-emptively strike and stop them reproducing?

I feel a thread hijack coming……

Ok its here…who would you want stop from reproducing??

I'll start : Grotesquely Fat People….. Why?? Its an image I just don't want to have in my head….Fatties on the job.

tankslapper – Member
Welshpool – you should see the place.

Err….No….No you shouldn't

Is yellow such a corrosive colour ? I like yellow…

Nuff Said

I think persons religious beliefs say a great deal about them….. 😯

Can't be arsed to read the thread, but Thatcher dun it ….

Now that would be funny.. imagine the whole God myth being created by a mother who was too embaressed to explain to little Johnny how his little sister got to be in mummys tummy!

Tyger : Read Dawkins

A few years ago I was involved in doing business is what was then the Soviet Union. Part of a project called Conversion 90 which under Gorbachov was trying to convert military production into domestic. Sort of swords into ploughshares thing.

Over a bottle of Vodka or two we had a lengthy discussion with some guys from a place called Chelyabinsk which is/was one of the centres of the Russian nuclear arms industry. We talked about the cold war and our mutual perceptions of one another and it was alarming how similar we all were. We all wanted bascially the same things. Roof over head, food in belly, hotty in bed etc etc.

Anyway, we eventually started talking about the nuclear deterrant, and their response was very simple and it went a bit like this:-

1) We lost 20 – 45 million people in the last war (depending whose numbers you believe)
2) We have been invaded and had wars fought over our territory on numerous occasions
3) We are a communist command economy, what we spend on weapons doesn't get spent on civilian goods
4) Americas 2nd world War losses were less than 1/2 million
5) They have never been invaded.
6) Weapons production in America is big business and highly profitable

So who is deterring who???

Personally I couldn't fault their logic, and history does suggest that they pretty much bankrupted themselves keeping up with the Jones.

Personally, apart from the fact the guy is a focal point, I don't think he is important to the debate per se. Its just that he has written a very well argued book on the subject, and having read it I found it very hard to find any argument with his logic, or any of the science, or any of the philosophy, or any of the arguments presented. Whereas on the other hand I was questioning the other side really from the first time I can remember. All of the time that I was a choirboy. All the time I attended a Christian youth organisation. Right up to the time when I was villified for refusing to start my marriage with a lie by getting married in Church. Due to the fact that I had come to the conclusion, partly with the active agreement of the Vicar that it was a load of cobblers.

Gets off soap-box… the thing that really troubles me about some of the recent STW posts are the comments that line up with Richard Dawkins' God Delusion. A lot of people seem to have simply swallowed all this without a critical look. Mr Dawkins philosophical arguments about religion seem to be seriously flawed in most areas and yet he has succeeded in convincing most people that his rationale is overwhelming and that nobody can challenge his views with any degree of intellectual rigour. NOT SO!!!

I would so love to see a serious god botherer sit down and do a televised debate with Dawkins. Having thoroughly read both sides of the equation, I'm off to the Building Society to get a mortgage, then off to Ladbrokes to put every penny of it down on Dawkins ripping Religion a new arsehole. IS SO !!!

…..Soz descended to the Religies level of debate for a moment 😉

I'm happy for people to have the right to believe whatever they like. Regretably that often is not reciprocated by those who chose make believe.

Personally it has always troubled me that being away with the fairies apparently is a basic qualification for all sorts of positions of power.

Stupid for following the scientific evidence? The science is not good but it is clear that if you are uninjured after an accident wearing a helmet then you would not have been killed with one. You might have been injured.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1019.html

Stupid for believing that a load of guff from a website with an obvious agenda is science. Besides, if you refer to the first line of tosh on their website, any fool will realise that you can't prove a negative. It is clearly possible to prove that someone has died due to head injuries, it is equally possible to prove whether they were wearing a helmet or not. What isn't possible is to account for all those people who do not get onto any statistical data simply becuase they haven't reported that nothing happened when they bashed their head.

In the meantime I'll go with my personal experience which is :-

3 smashed helmets in my garage, no head injuries apart from self inflicted (mainly an assault on brain cells through alcohol and drugs)
3 people known personally to me dead as a result of head injuries, none of them wearing a helmet
Nil people known to me seriously hurt or killed due to a head or neck injury whilst wearing a helmet

QED in my world.

Cricket….. absolute dross to watch

so who are we to judge that?

The victims ?

Read the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

Once you've done that and attempted to find a way round the logic that he applies to the delusion, you will find difficult to have anything other than complete contempt for the entire religious myth worldwide, never mind the Irish Catholics.

Its all a load of utter toss and the sooner we all wake up to that the better.

Its Thatchers fault!

There is a direct straight line connection between her government and trolls….. undeniable fact!

Its to do with having a big belly with the mother of all bruises on it apparently…… 😉

Old Git Surrey – Member
Many yes arguments including (but not limited to):-

Saving taxpayers money on housing lifers.

Ultimate deterrent for murder.

Common misconceptions if you don't mind me saying so.

America which does have the death penalty in some states disproves both of the above without need to resort to any sort of argument other than simply that.

Bushwacked….. most household insurance policies have legal costs cover. Worth investigating if this is worth activating. I missed that one when it happened to me. For that reason I made choices based on financial considerations rather than what was necessarily right for me.

Worth a look at the policy at the very least.

Give your Mrs a hug from the STW massif on my behalf will yer? Similar experience to mine there, and as its transpired once the initial shock has passed mine has been a tower of strength over the subsequent years, all through me having bits falling off me, through to now when I at starting to feel OK for the first time in a long time. (Incidentally that is also why you must seek your own form of closure to this).

Positive vibes in bucket loads coming your way.

No No and No again.

The issue should be about what works and the guage of that should be what prevents reoffending. Not in respct of individual cases, but as a whole, (otherwise the Daily Mail brigade will inevitably discover the exceptions that prove the rule.)

Hanging people doesn't work. The level of crime that warranted a death sentence has not substantially changed capital punishment or no, and thats pretty much a worldwide experience not just in the UK (It is a given that dead person will not reoffend incidentally, but that is not the point here)

Locking people up does not generally lead to a reduction in reoffending. So its fairly obvious that we need to do something else.

Personally I'd fund the criminal justice system properly and judge outcomes and therefore salaries by recidivism rates, and simply leave it to the pros to resolve. I might even consider making it illegal to use it as a political football.

The censorship point is that after receiving complaints about it they refused to take it down, whilst they do take stuff down as GrahamS says, however they do it routinely not occasionally as he states.

The presumption therefore is that google perceive this image as acceptable, which clearly it isn't.

The question is why are google refusing to take it down?

Genuinely sorry to hear the news Bushwacked.

Had a similar experience a while back, and it properly **** me up. The most destructive element for me was trying to figure the "why me" question. Often there are no valid answers, so for what its worth my best advice is to follow the advice given above, keep records, contemporaneous notes, take advice, negotiate the best possible deal etc etc, but whatever you do don't waste your energy on the rights and wrongs of it once its over. See it as an opportunity to manage your career. Good people are always in demand and if you are one you are not limited to any one sector.

if you insist that "a freemarket ethos is does not exclude [me] from centre or left of centre politics" then I would insist that my political views do not exclude me from the left either

Do you know I have absolutely no idea what that was about…

Besides my entire being is now focussed on positive vibes for bushwacked. So regret that my attention has temporarily wavered from tickling your political testicles

jeezarse Bandit.
Do you never read anything?

Only when its interesting and/or pertinent, which I hate to say your theory on tax for the better off just isn't. The real issue here is your original point that a freemarket ethos does not exclude you from centre or left of centre politics. As far as I can see you have been busily avoiding that issue and trying to fill the resultant hole that you dug ever since. C'mon how about coughing that you may have been a bit previous with that one?? 🙄