I’ve never driven drunk in 35 years
I am anti the death penalty but believe in strict punishment for drunk drivers
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Thanks, Marijh. I’ll read that. It occurs to me we are talking at cross-purposes, but I’ll read it carefully and respond properly in the morning.
The UK did an excellent don’t drink and drive TV campaign back in the 80’s or so in advertisement slots and got excellent results. Then it seemed the issues widened to include drug driving. I think quite a lot of progress was made in a few other countries I can think of (NZ, Oz, Germany) through educational means. ie get to people when they are sober. The probem still exists though.
My partner’s son was killed by a drunk driver. Opportunities may exist to ‘make things right’ but my partner declined and said he would never want the family of a drunk driver to go through what he went through with the loss of his son.
As someone who was actively involved in both the prevention and detection of drink driving offences for many years, I can personally attest that one very effective way of preventing these offences is to increase the perception of the likelihood of detection in the mind of the prospective offender. That is not to say that the actual likelihood of detection has to increase, but the prospective offender needs to believe that it has.
Administering a breath test to a driver who is still sitting in the car provides a deterrent effect only on the occupants of the vehicle in question. Get that driver out of the car, preferably on a busy road with lots of passing traffic, take your time administering the test, and make sure that every passing driver can see what you are doing, and then administering that one breath test has had an effect on every other person who happens to be passing by.
So now that one breath test has had an effect on say 100 people, and all of them talk to their family, friends, and work colleagues, and so the word goes around that it’s best not to drink and drive or else “those bloody traffic cops will get ya”.
Another effective way to prevent drink driving is through education, so that people who know they will be driving don’t take alcohol, and those that wish to drink don’t take their car. The obvious legal penalties are not the only deterrent to be discussed. Will the offender lose their job because they are banned from driving. If they lose their job, then how will they support themselves and their family. How many of their friends will still be their friend if they know that some other person was killed or maimed by the irresponsible actions of the offender.
How will they cope with the guilt of having killed or maimed one or more of the passengers in the vehicle that they were driving. These are all things that make people stop and think before driving at a time when they know that they will have been drinking alcohol beforehand.
Some people will see the light by means of education, but only if it is available to, or forced upon them. Others will do the right thing because they fear detection and feel that the likelihood of said detection is high. Sadly, some will find out the hard way that drink driving is really not a good idea.
Harsh mandatory penalties do not on their own solve the problem. Yes, the courts should have the ability to impose harsh sentencing, but it should not be mandatory due to the fact that such sentencing impacts more forcefully on some people than others.
Personally, I think a little innovation in sentencing powers might not come amiss. How about some broader publication of the fact of conviction so that everyone knows who the drunk drivers are. How about some posters showing a photo and details of the offender with a caption underneath that asks if you want your photo here soon ? If not — then don’t drink and drive!
Really?
As I thought: we’re at cross-purposes, probably because of your assumptions about what I think.
The article you linked to seems to be about an analysis of the effect, in a single US state, of a change in sentencing practice. The conclusion was that it probably hadn’t made a significant difference.
I had been talking abut the UK and France. America is such a different place - legally, in practice and constitution, and societally - to either of the European countries I mentioned, so irrelevant to the comparison I was making.
(You may be unaware of how drink-driving is sentenced in England & Wales. Broadly, the higher the reading, the longer the ban, but you’re less likely to get jail than seems to be the case in France. So the lorry driver in the case I mentioned, had he been sentenced in England, would have had a 3-year disqualification and be ordered to take his driving test again, but probably not jail.)
I was interested in a paragraph earlier in that article: “In Norway and Sweden, where drunk driving laws carrying jail penalties have been in place for a half-century, there appears to be less impaired driving than in many other Western countries, but Ross has shown that the causal connection between these laws and low rates of impaired driving is unproved in Scandinavia.”
That’s much closer to the cases I mentioned. What stops someone drink-driving?
If you consider antisocial behaviour as occupying a spectrum from, at one end, something trivial like taking someone’s place in a queue to, at the other end, murder, we can probably agree that drink-driving is somewhere between the two.
The potential drink-driver, like any other potential criminal - certainly this includes me, and perhaps you - balances his desires against the consequences of being caught AND his moral sense. (Obviously his judgment gets worse the more he has had to drink.) I suppose sometimes, drink-driving is the result of a miscalculation.
Criminal sentencing has, broadly, three aims: deterrence, punishment and rehabilitation. As you say (again, this is so obvious as to hardly need saying)
I don’t think anyone here is suggesting heavier sentencing for drink-driving, so you’re pushing against an open door there! My thinking is much closer to Robert Hodge’s (especially the bit about making the stop and roadside test as noticeable as possible!).
That’s true, and I imagine many of us know cases where it applies exceptionally harshly – but what would be the effect on the amount of drink-driving if it were known that a ban was not mandatory? I could imagine courts clogged up with Nick Freeman-alikes arguing against a ban (and benches unable to impose an interim ban as they do at present).
As you say,
If only that were possible, and we could have, say, specialist probation officers and educators, and convicted people could be directed towards them. But this government - like others before it - has failed dismally to invest properly in justice.
I think there has been little difference made here between ‘drunk’ drivers and those that have a drink before driving but remain under the limit. The former are obviously incapable and may be alcoholic, but the latter can be very able to drive but might slip, sometimes due to weight and bodily makeup, just over the limit in a test.
As a professional driver the penalties for accidentally overstepping that mark were so severe for me that I stopped drinking alcohol completely before driving. So deterrence does work.
But I am not sure that @Robert_Hodge’s solution of extended public testing of drivers is a good idea. For it to work as a deterrent at all would mean that his 100 people for several seconds are diverted in their attention from the road ahead, and that cannot be a good thing.
Nowadays for other reasons, I am a non-alcoholic drinker but I do permit myself, once a fortnight, to have a demi while waiting for my order at the chippy van, before driving the 1 km back home again.
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possible unintended consequences, indeed. A following car driver could have his attention diverted for a split second and ram the car in front if it too slowed unexpectedly to do a bit of rubber necking causing whiplash injuries to the occupants.
I always wonder, if someone has a drink, is definitely under the limit, but is then involved in an accident. They blow below the limits but the machine shows they have alcohol in their blood , would they spend the rest of their lives wondering if they hadn’t had a drink would things be different? I couldn’t cope with that
Hi Lizzie,
Yes it is true that ANY amount of alcohol impairs a person’s ability to drive. A specific limit is set because it is acknowledged that some people have a natural blood alcohol level which is higher than the average just like some people have higher blood sugar levels than others. Also, it is acknowledged that people can unknowingly partake of alcohol in food. A genuine Rhum Ba Ba, or a nice slice of Black Forest Gateaux made with real Kirsch for example. The amount of alcohol is likely to be so small that there will be no serious impairment of driving ability, and so a reasonable limit is set to excuse such minor amounts. However, it is still true to say that any increase of blood alcohol above a person’s normal level will cause impairment of judgement to some degree.
@David_Spardo I always found that flashing blue lights and officers in high visibility jackets tend to cause approaching drivers to markedly increase their attention to the road ahead. Certainly they put down the phone or map they are looking at, stop fishing for the next CD to put on the player, delay lighting that ciggy, put the sandwich to one side, cease slurping from the can of drink, and stop changing the channels on the radio. They also tend to slow down to whatever the speed limit may happen to be in that location. Surely you will know this to be so from your own personal experience as a driver.
Watch out — it’s the cops. Best pay attention.
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I do, and I also know that they transfer their attention from the road ahead to the opposite side to watch the same blue lights and the poor bugger on display blowing into a bag, and in doing so perhaps run into the bloke in front who braked more sharply than they did.
All those things you mentioned undoubtedly cause accidents, the last thing we want is something else to add to the lethal mix.
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It’s a long time since anyone blew into a bag ! , Fair enough if it’s an clamp down operation then you may use the term “ poor bugger “ for the person being tested , if they have been stopped because of being suspected of driving under the influence, they aren’t a poor bugger
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Clearly we shall have to agree to differ on this point David. I would however ask you to bear in mind that I, together with my colleagues, have carried out this task innumerable times, and there was never a time when an accident was caused as a result. The strategy was often employed in relation to specific lengths of certain roads where the fatal / serious injury accident rate was unacceptably high, and was found to be highly successful in bringing the late evening / nightime accident rate down to, or indeed below, the average.
Unfortunately these days, the Police no longer have the numbers to be able to do much preventative enforcement about a great many things. Successive governments have cut funding time and again, and as a result the ability to reduce the incidence of drink / driving by increasing the perception of the likelihood of detection has gone down the drain. The saddest consequence of this is that people are maimed and killed needlessly.
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Poor bugger because we don’t know the circumstances, poor bugger for being paraded publicly before being found guilty of anything. I was once stopped and tested because I was driving slowly trying to find the side street which was my destination in a strange town. You don’t have to be drunk to be stopped by the police.
Not in Britain but I was also tested in St. Omer one Saturday morning, before the autoroute by-passed it. There was a long queue into the town caused by the mass testing of all who passed through it. In Britain you can be stopped for anything they like, don’t believe that just because you have been, you are guilty of something.
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Can you explain the last part of your post please about traffic stops on Britain
Certainly, although I thought I was clear enough. In Britain the police have to have a reason to stop you, or so I believe, but of course if they want to they can think of anything valid in order to do so. They don’t have to prove the need, they only have to say that they thought there was a need, hence the stop of me for doing 25 mph in a 30 mph zone in Kent. They admitted that the only reason they stopped me was because they weren’t accustomed to people driving so slowly. They then, perhaps smelling the faint whiff of the one glass of wine I had taken at the restaurant with our meal, decided to breath test me. I was well below the limit but was so nervous about it nevertheless that I vowed not to drink even a minute amount before driving in the future. The deterrent that worked. I wasn’t humiliated in any way and this took place in a friendly atmosphere in the police car.
I should also say in passing that my companion, well known for his Bolshie attitude towards any kind of authority, to my undying gratitude uttered not a word and sat still with his eyes fixed on a distant point. 
Right I get what you mean now,
A police officer can stop any vehicle for a routine check, but they must be in uniform
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I am sure the police select locations for such checks where there is less chance of this
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When I began to visit North Yorkshire frequently, my other half’s family warned me to watch out for traffic police as they were much more active than what I might have been used to elsewhere.
I was indeed stopped by Yorkshire Police twice. But both times it was for driving too slow.
Having had a few speeding tickets themselves, this caused much mirth amongst the family.
One time my windscreen wipers had failed and I was making my way slowly within damp fog for the last few miles approaching midnight. It felt safer within the limited visibility to continue as I was so close - more chance of getting hit if I stopped as there was nowhere to pull off the road. The police pretty much agreed and said slow=drunk driver had been their thought.
The other time I was simply lost as I had taken a wrong turn and was checking signposts of roads off to try to get back on the right track. “no one drives slow in Yorkshire” it seems.
Certainly before Community Roadwatch operations a site is fully assesessed by a trained assessor,
The police are very big on risk assessments