Watching a programme about the police on the A8. Arrested an Eastern European lorry driver who blew 2.66g in a litre of breath, which I calculate as over 9 times the legal limit.
The penalty was an 8 month ban and a month in prison.
Disturbingly lenient, I thought. (Also, I’d have expected him to be forced to get help, but obvs that’s more difficult when sentencing a foreign national.)
well at least he got to do some Porridge 
With good behaviour he’ll be out in a few weeks… any deportation order?
Thats ok then they would no doubt be lenient with me when i do the same. Jees what does it take?? Death of innocent people first?
Yep, deported too.
Corona, I’ve been watching a few of these. Consistently substantially lower penalties than 
.
I presume the same insurance difficulties.
For those of us here who are used to the draconian mandatory penalties imposed in the UK, the sentencing outcome of the case at the start of this thread may well seem unduly lenient. However, no doubt the offender concerned has also lost his job, and will have great difficulty in finding any type of further employment that requires driving for many years to come. One wonders how the penalty imposed will affect the offender’s housing situation. Is the offender at risk of losing their home due to inability to pay mortgage or rent payments.
Also, is the offender married and/or have children, and what will be the knock-on effect of the sentence imposed in their respect.
I think that we need to rely on the ability and discretion of the courts to impose an appropriate penalty in the light of ALL the relevant information relating to the offender.
Please don’t get me wrong here as I am certainly not trying to defend or excuse driving under the influence. I have had to pick up the pieces (literally) caused by drunk drivers, and informing the relatives of the deceased is never a pleasant task.
However, I do think that mandatory sentences are inappropriate as they affect different offenders differently.
For example; My next door neighbour was caught driving absolutely plastered 3 times in the same week. This involved two minor accidents with parked vehicles and a further incident of driving along the footpath. He was banned for 3 years, but as he was a chef on a cargo ship, and could walk to work, it didn’t cost him his job and he was still able to pay his mortgage and support his family.
Another person I knew was caught just a little bit over the limit on a routine check. No accident, and no moving traffic offence. That person’s job involved driving, so he immediately lost his job. Living in a place not well served by public transport the person was unemployed for over a year.
Clearly drunk driving is a very serious matter that can, and often does, have devastating consequences. Clearly there are also degrees of seriousness, and indeed varying degrees of recklessness involved in different specific instances.
I do however think that it is right that the courts should have the ability to vary sentencing, especially to avoid impacting the family of the offender. Sometimes it may be appropriate to allow the offender to drive to and from the workplace, but not at any other time for example.
Yes, the offender should be both punished and dissuaded from repeating the offence, but consideration should also be given to the consequential effect on the family of the offender. Therefore the courts should indeed have discretion as to what penalty to impose.
different rules seem to apply in France to the UK.
The owner of our local terrassement company, some years ago, was charged with drink driving by Gendarmes. He went to court and as his job (which included many contracts for public works) involved driving, he was permitted to continue to drive his JCB.
All his future trips to the local bar were conducted in his bright shiny new yellow JCB
On a similar note, an Englishman of our acquaintance (a builder and now back in the UK AFAIK) had an accident in his car when it came off the road, slipped into a ditch and struck a tree or some such thing, writing his car off. The Gendames were called and he was taken to Urgence for a checkup by the sapeurs (who took a blood sample for analysis which later turned out positive) but managed to climb out of the window and fled the hospital precincts. He was well known to the Flics and was quickly re-arrested (walking home if I recall) and later appeared in court. He was of course found guilty of exceeding the drink drive limit but when it came to penalties, as a builder requiring transport to and from jobs, he was given time to arrange his affairs first before his licence was pulled (a 3 or 6 month ban if I remember).
A different perspective on the arrangements between jurisdictions.
Yes 2 ways of looking at it. Many years ago, my wife Fran was about one Guinness over the limit after being followed on the way home from a darts match and avoiding the curb on a gentle curve. The reason for the stop was that the way she did so, at the last minute, was suspicious. 3 year ban and £300.
A driver where I worked here on artics was banned after failing an alcohol test, but then given a ‘white licence’ which enabled him to drive his car between home and work, and continue to drive his lorry all over France, and beyond. 
What makes you think a harsher sentence would help prevent it in the future? Certainly, for drunk driving, it has been proven time and time again that harsh sentences simply do not prevent repeat offences.
If you are drunk you simply are not able to link consequences to your actions.
I’d be interested in seeing that evidence. Could you provide a link, please?
PS You seem to have made an assumption about my thinking:
What would you say is the way to deal with this Mathijs?
Totally disagree, lots of drunk drivers are well aware of the potential consequences but don’t care
That is medically speaking one of the effects of intoxication. You do not care a lot because the link between actions and consequences is partly broken.
And if you believe that your awareness is not affected by being intoxicated… well then there is not a lot to say other than you probably have never been drunk and did something you would never have done while you were sober.
I have. And I know why. Alcohol dulls the parts of your brain that think ahead. That is WHY we drink alcohol to a great degree. If a beer would make me think more about possible problems it would have utterly failed as a commercial product.
Guys, the effects of alcohol on humans have been very well documented since 1950. Almost nothing has changed since these first studies because it is so blindingly obvious that alcohol simply prevents people from linking actions to consequences. That is why we call it a drug. That is why it is a dangerous substance. If you are looking for hard data, I suggest the very readable studies published by the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. I could also link you my own university publications on the topic but I have the feeling those might not suit the reader as they are rather hard-core studies with loads of statistics comparing how different countries handle things differently and how that affects accidents involving alcohol over the last 40 years.
Matjijs, maybe provide a link to the research you say provides evidence for your assertion, since it is surprising (given the multiplicity of factors having an influence, which include the likelihood of being caught)?
If there only would be an answer to that.
Statistically, countries that focus on awareness rather than punishment have been far more effective in stopping injuries and deaths, but to a lesser degree in accidents with only material damage. Also statistically, there is not a single documented case of a reduction in drunk driving with higher punishment. As explained, that is totally understandable as one of the effects of alcohol is to not being able to see the consequences of your actions.
The key is not to prevent people from getting in their cars and being drunk, but to prevent them from taking their cars going to where they will drink. That is a decision they take being sober. And that is why awareness is a proven method and tripling jail time simply does not work.
It is really first-year criminology. You can’t eradicate substance abuse with punishment. because it is substance abuse. The countries with the strictest punishments have the biggest problems. Almost 3% of US citizens are in jail or under some form of correctional supervision. Half of those are because of drugs (including alcohol). And the US ranks in the top 5 off countries with the most strict laws and also in the top 5 off countries with the biggest problems in these areas.
If you believe in locking up a person who stepped into his car drunk will prevent it from happening again you are simply misguided, It is just about the crime with the highest recidivism.
I think I’d be really happy to see a bit of evidence for these assertions. I’m not saying they’re wrong, but they may as well be for the amount of evidence provided to support them.
There are people who regularly go out drinking and drive, they know when they go out they will be over the limit when they drive home. They make that conscious decision when they are stone cold sober
only quoting more popular publications and not serious scientific work:
https://drugabuse.com/blog/lock-em-up-is-jail-really-the-best-deterrent-to-drunk-driving/
“As it turns out, tougher punishments aren’t effective in deterring people from driving drunk”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235297000755
“The research also explores the differential effect of punishment and rehabilitation for first time offenders”
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6657&context=jclc
"Increasing the severity of threatened punishment for drunk drivers through mandatory jail sentences does not appear to have been a successful deterrent "
A simple Google search will find hundreds more studies (but again, most of them are only readable for people with a background in statistics, criminology or certain parts of sociology. And yes you will also find studies saying that locking people up for a long time works. And indeed it does, people in jail do not drive.
Exactly as I said. you have to convince them not to do it while they are sober. Not expect them to understand the same when they are drunk. That is why most countries are now focussing on awareness and not punishment. Because it simply is far more effective.
Google is your friend.
Look deep enough and you will find my thesis and my other scientific publications, lol. The result of 20 years of study. I doubt however that will convince some people here who believe drunk drivers should be flogged to prevent them from doing it again. The same people often believe that the death penalty prevents murder, even though the murder rate in countries (states) with the death penalty is almost inevitably higher.
Have you done things while being drunk you would never have done being sober? I have. And I know why.