"Never Ever Drink and Drive" signs on motorway

[Betsy Og]

I think the limit should have been left at 0.8 or whatever it was. It's not that I want people "chancing it" as to how much to drink on a night, but bear in mind the morning after scenario, you've been sensible, left the car at home before you went out. You need to drive the day after, you feel perfect, had sleep and eaten, you get bagged and you're 0.7. Under the old limit you were grand, under a "zero" limit you are off the road.

Are these drivers the cause of road deaths?, I dont think so. Maybe someone has the stats but I suspect most alcohol related driving deaths and caused by those wildly over the limit. Single vehicle crashes in the middle of nowhere - driver either locked, fell asleep (mabye contributed to by being well over the limit) or, sadly, wanted to end it all. I dont think the 0.8ers are causing mayhem.

In Ireland the favoured route is draconian limits and penalties and hardly any enforcement (I've never been bagged in my life in Ireland - twice in one day in Australia). I'd favour reasonable limits, appropriate graduated penalties and plenty of enforcement.

Zero limits will only catch 'innocents', particularly in morning after scenarios, and IMHO wont contribute to greater road safety.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Is there any data on the number of people who have been caught "the morning after"? I hear plenty of anecdotes about other people, but no one has actually ever reported a first hand experience of being tested in the morning. I don't drive much, but I have never seen a test in the morning. Mind you, I haven't seen many in the evenings either.

I suspect that Gardai see someone driving dangerously in the morning and find them smelling of alcohol. They would be right to test them.

 

[callybags]

Is there any data on the number of people who have been caught "the morning after"? I hear plenty of anecdotes about other people, but no one has actually ever reported a first hand experience of being tested in the morning. I don't drive much, but I have never seen a test in the morning. Mind you, I haven't seen many in the evenings either.

I suspect that Gardai see someone driving dangerously in the morning and find them smelling of alcohol. They would be right to test them.

I have been bagged in the morning. It was one of those mandatory ckeckpoints where everyone was stopped.

It was about 11am on a Sunday and I had been out until about 10.30 the previous night. I was that nervous my hand was shaking trying to hold the tube.

Thankfully I passed but it brought it home to me how easily one could get done.

There should be some form of garda discretion for these checkpoints in the morning. It should be reasonably obvious if someone has been drinking until 4 or 5 Am and is still plastered rather than having had four or five pints the night before and are on the way to work, but just show up over the limit.

 

[gianni]

I have been bagged in the morning. It was one of those mandatory ckeckpoints where everyone was stopped.

It was about 11am on a Sunday and I had been out until about 10.30 the previous night. I was that nervous my hand was shaking trying to hold the tube.

Thankfully I passed but it brought it home to me how easily one could get done.

There should be some form of garda discretion for these checkpoints in the morning. It should be reasonably obvious if someone has been drinking until 4 or 5 Am and is still plastered rather than having had four or five pints the night before and are on the way to work, but just show up over the limit.

Couldn't disagree more.

The limits are defined for a reason. If you're over them your ability to drive is impaired.

 

[callybags]

Couldn't disagree more.

The limits are defined for a reason. If you're over them your ability to drive is impaired.

As it is impaired if:

-You are after working a 24 hour shift and are exhausted
-You have just driven 250 miles without a break
-you are under severe pressure with work and domestic problems and your mind is anywhere but on your driving.

None of these carry an automatic ban, but if the guard forms the opinion that you are a big danger to yourself or others he can take it further, which may well result in a ban.

 

[T McGibney]

The limits are absurdly low anyway, eg for blood tests, 50mg here v 80mg in NI & GB. There is no reason in the world why our limits are 37.5% lower than across the border or the Irish Sea. Neither is there any appreciable differences in road casualty figures.

 

[Seagull]

I think the limit should have been left at 0.8 or whatever it was. It's not that I want people "chancing it" as to how much to drink on a night, but bear in mind the morning after scenario, you've been sensible, left the car at home before you went out. You need to drive the day after, you feel perfect, had sleep and eaten, you get bagged and you're 0.7. Under the old limit you were grand, under a "zero" limit you are off the road.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy this argument. If you need to drive the next day, then you know that before you start drinking, and drink accordingly. If you've been sensible, you won't have drunk so much that you're still over the limit when you get up. If you're still over the limit, odds are that you are also short on sleep. Either way, your driving is going to be impaired.

 

[Betsy Og]

I'm sorry, but I don't buy this argument. If you need to drive the next day, then you know that before you start drinking, and drink accordingly. If you've been sensible, you won't have drunk so much that you're still over the limit when you get up. If you're still over the limit, odds are that you are also short on sleep. Either way, your driving is going to be impaired.

I cant argue too much except that many a man went out "for a pint", or even 2 pints, and ended up having more that they should - its a fact that self-restraint and commonsense are diminshed after maybe 4 or 5 pints (just ask the guards and the A&E staff). And remember I'm not saying being drunk the morning after is ok, I'm just saying that any of us with 0.8 werent, to my knowledge, endangering ourselves and others all along, so why suddendly should we be off the road for 2 years for what didnt seem to be causing problems before??

Going to extremes or being too puritanical just doesnt work. E.g. I dont smoke, never have, never will, but I think the amount of duty on cigarettes is just crazy, and the exchequer take hasnt increased either but the illegal cigarette market is booming (and those ones are about 14 times worse for you due to tar levels etc). But we're all "on message", daren't criticise for fear we be painted as 'backwoods men', but in many of these areas we're well past the point of "enough is enough".

[I hope everyone appreciates the restraint it took to avoid blaming "them up in the Dublin" and the "mee-jah" and maybe an awl dig at D4 as has long been the modus of the Healy Rae-ism and, more recently, the Quinn family )

 

[T McGibney]

[I hope everyone appreciates the restraint it took to avoid blaming "them up in the Dublin" and the "mee-jah" and maybe an awl dig at D4 as has long been the modus of the Healy Rae-ism and, more recently, the Quinn family )

In fairness to Michael Healy Rae, he is one of the few politicians brave enough to defy cosy consensus and express the same common sense in relation to drinking and driving as you do in your post above.

 

[Betsy Og]

In fairness to Michael Healy Rae, he is one of the few politicians brave enough to defy cosy consensus and express the same common sense in relation to drinking and driving as you do in your post above.

He did, and I'm almost certain that on this site I supported the general sentiment that something should be done about rural isolation. However the proposal as I recall was unscientific, unenforceable and a major problem was that it was coming from a self-interested source (Healy Rae's being publicans) which lacked credibility (the Healy Rae clan having a long history of general buffoonery).

If they'd looked for a general increase in the limit to 1.2, shown by X study to have a negligible effect on road safety. Or if people didnt want that as a general rule, then for journey's wholly outside urban areas that that higher limit could apply (if you could find any research to say that was acceptable).

Instead all we got was anecdotes, asking us to picture the scene as bachelor farmer makes his way over the mountain in a Massey Ferguson in the clear knowledge no one else was on the road. That's all well and good and no doubt arises in some cases, but clearly you couldnt legislate for such situations into a law that could be administered - so you'd have to conclude the whole thing was either v naieve or, more likely, a publicity stunt. [Where the 'them in Dublin' stuff plays well, but doesn't help your chances of actually achieving anything.]

 

[T McGibney]

It was his brother Danny who made that crazy suggestion. Michael previously questioned the drop from 80mg to 50mg and was lacerated in the media for his insolence.

 

[Betsy Og]

It was his brother Danny who made that crazy suggestion. Michael previously questioned the drop from 80mg to 50mg and was lacerated in the media for his insolence.

I'll bow to your greater knowledge of the Healy Rae clan ( ..... getting a bit worried about you), and I'd fully back his questioning of the drop in the limit.

 

[Latrade]

...and I'd fully back his questioning of the drop in the limit.

I'd personally question his questioning of the drop as to be more in the interests of publicans than based on referencing scientific studies.

There is a cultural problem with the limits (not just here) in that rather than encouraging social responsibility, i.e. abstain from drink if driving, it encourages "I'm ok with one...two if I'd had some soakage". Since the focus on limits from an enforcement view, the common response has been to translate the limit to how many drinks you can have and drive rather than I'm driving so I'll stick to the soft drinks.

This is changing of course and I definitely see more friends abstaining, but not totally.

The crux of the likes of H-R's arguments and their like, given I've yet to see them refer to scientific literature, is based on some form of unwritten entilement for people to consume alcohol in a pub and that a pub culture cannot exist if a small percentage abstain from alcohol while there.

If it really is impossible for his constituants to organise themselves so that 1 in 5 or so drives, gives others a lift and abstains for one night on rotation and still have reasonable social engagement, then as well as a very weak argument, it possible says even more about the people who keep voting for the H-R's than we previously thought.

There are many causes of impairment, but we can only really measure with a degree of accuracy alcohol, drugs and mobile device use. So we can legislate for them and remove them from the causes of accidents and fatalities.

Having said that, I'm entitled to drink, consume drugs, us a phone while driving, I'm a better driver than every one else so I can. Everyone else shouldn't though, they're bad people.

 

[T McGibney]

The crux of the likes of H-R's arguments and their like, given I've yet to see them refer to scientific literature, is based on some form of unwritten entilement for people to consume alcohol in a pub and that a pub culture cannot exist if a small percentage abstain from alcohol while there.

...
There are many causes of impairment, but we can only really measure with a degree of accuracy alcohol, drugs and mobile device use. So we can legislate for them and remove them from the causes of accidents and fatalities.

This is a reasonable argument (although I wouldn't necessarily agree with it). If, for the moment, we accept it, then it begs the question as to why the UK (in general a far more urbanised society than we are) don't see it as an issue and have therefore retained their existing 80mg limits.

I don't, for a split second, buy the argument that Gordon Brown or David Cameron are (1) in the habit of recklessly endangering road users (2) in the pockets of evil rural publicans.

 

[bullbars]

The crux of the likes of H-R's arguments and their like, given I've yet to see them refer to scientific literature, is based on some form of unwritten entilement for people to consume alcohol in a pub and that a pub culture cannot exist if a small percentage abstain from alcohol while there.

Well they can't claim that pubs will suffer financially if a few people have soft drinks instead. The prices I've been charged for coke/7up/cordial etc. are shocking. I've gone to the pub and sat drinking soft drinks thinking I'd save a few quid but end up thinking that I might as well have had pints.

 

[Latrade]

This is a reasonable argument (although I wouldn't necessarily agree with it). If, for the moment, we accept it, then it begs the question as to why the UK (in general a far more urbanised society than we are) don't see it as an issue and have therefore retained their existing 80mg limits.

I don't, for a split second, buy the argument that Gordon Brown or David Cameron are (1) in the habit of recklessly endangering road users (2) in the pockets of evil rural publicans.

Out of interest, why just pick the UK as an example? Out of the whole of Europe, the UK is the only with a limit greater than 0.05%. They are the stand out state in that picture. Why not give the examples of all the countries that have lower limits?

However, Scotland held its own consultation and confirmed in March that it will be lowering the limit to 0.05%. As to why thy UK didn't adopt the European standard, I've no idea. However, the only argument levelled against a reduction in limits is the impact on pubs and the drink industry. No other interest group seems to have much of an issue other than those two.

So if the rejection wasn't based science (as the British Medical Association's opinion was to lower limits), road safety (as the Police and Road Safety groups supported lowering it) and the only argument to not drop limits came from landlords and drinks industry, we are left with wondering for ourselves who may have influenced the decision. Except in Scotland where they actually asked the citizens and 75% said lower the limits.

 

[T McGibney]

I cited the UK as they are our nearest neighbour (with whom we also share a border), and whose social and pub cultures most clearly resemble our own.