The International Traffic Injury Foundation with combined data from Australia, Canada and Sweden has a piece regarding the lowering bac debate;
“The rationale behind lowering BAC is fundamentally flawed as it fails to make connection between a lower BAC limit and alcohol related crashes.
There is a process involved in changing drink drive behavior that includes drivers becoming aware of the law, becoming motivated to comply with the law and understanding how to comply with the lower limit, there is little evidence to suggest that the introduction of a lower BAC limit has an effect on this process, hence, there is little reason to expect a reduction in alcohol related crashes.
In addition the rationale for a lower BAC limit fails to acknowledge the powerful influence that alcohol abuse or dependence has on behavior, People with alcohol problems account for the majority of alcohol related crashes.
Their drinking behavior and subsequent driving is not easily changed.
Regardless of a lower BAC limit this high risk group will continue to drink heavily and drive afterwards, lowering the limit is a measure directed at the wrong group of drivers”.

This “magic bullet” addressing lowering bac will be a tragic misfire, in punishing the general public that would do well to be better educated and understand the standard drinks concept and variables that increase bac. Also uneducated drivers with residual alcohol that only “last night” had a sober driver, but “this morning” drives to work still over the limit.

Whilst we recycle recidivists with multiple convictions back onto our roads.

Id also like to address the fact that 2/3′s of “other” smashes are non alcohol related but I dont believe we have any data on recidivist cell phone offenders that crash…what we do know, is that its not rocket science – your driving skills will be severely impaired with alcohol.

When my husband and our friends were killed by a man with 20 years of drinkdriving history and four prior convictions, the first headline by police were : “calls to lower bac saves 14 lives a year”
Now Im not silly, I know lowering Bac would not have stopped this man drinking and driving, and it will not stop the others on our roads like him.
I congratulate the Editors blog in yesterdays Herald in recognising the issues.

A great deal of work was done some years ago by a DSIR researcher (Dr J P M Bailey, now deceased) on New Zealand accident statistics and the relationship with blood alcohol levels, which included discussion on the impact of lowering the drink driving limit. If my memory serves me correctly (and I’m pretty sure it does), the conclusion was that lowering the limit would not achieve the desired effect as a factor in by far the majority of accidents/fatalities was alcohol impairment well over the legal limit. I recollect, also, that this was not a message the MOT (as it was) and, later, Police, wanted to hear as it did not sit well with their objectives.

If lowering the limit is to come under Select Committee discussion, the Committee would do well to review Dr Bailey’s reports and conclusions from his research. I doubt that anything significant has happened since this work was done to negate his conclusions.

Yeah but he was an Aussie…

Mind you, the cops should think themselves bloody lucky that the worst they have to witness us doing is driving drunk… not like the Aussies:

A Darwin man has been fined $2,000 for filming himself masturbating while speeding along the Stuart Highway.

The man is already in jail until August after pleading guilty to carrying cannabis in the car boot and two plants on the back seat.

Brenton Alan Erhardt, 39, pleaded guilty in the Darwin Magistrates Court to dangerous driving.

He was pulled over by police on the Stuart Highway in July speeding at 147 kilometres per hour, south of Daly Waters.

He admitted to officers he filmed himself masturbating while driving from Adelaide to Darwin.

He also pleaded guilty to driving unlicensed, carrying two cannabis smoking pipes, administering the drug and carrying a loaded rifle.

Magistrate Sue Oliver says the driving was bizarre to say the least and conduct she expects of someone much younger.

While the impounding of the vehicle irrespective of its ownership does sound a bit harsh I can assure you it does not take long for the message to sink in.
If you live in the UK for long enough you soon learn that “”borrowing” a mates car is simply not something you would ask of somebody or something they would ask of you.

It just takes a change on culture, when I first went to the UK to play cricket I suggested that we as a team had a beer in the changing rooms straight after the game as we did back in NZ, they all thought that was a splendid idea but had to run the car home first…lol

EBT (drink driving) convictions have remained static while deaths on the road go down – someone marginally over the limit is as about as bad a driver as someone who is driving with a nasty head cold, or whilst sleep deprived and less a bad driver than someone texting – however, someone driving at twice the legal limit is a bomb waiting to go off.

It’s not about an over the top response it’s about a graduated response as Southern Raider points out – considering the variables – weight, metabolism, food – it’s easy to think you are under a limit of 3 drinks but be marginally over it whilst someone who then pours the turps down gets the same punishment

I do agree with your point around the 20 cents a week pay off after the 400th offence, having sat around the legal system for a week or two and watched how the bulk of convictions are against those with some sort of benefit and are repeat offenders and disqualified and …… but the treatment is the same as the 1st offender – except 1st offenders not on the benefit had to pay off immediately.

Agree with all bar the “irrespective of owner” bit. My stepdaughter left her keys on the kitchen table, a visitor with a disqualification offered to take her partner to work and drop the car back (the partner didn’t know he was disaqualified), they got pinged and she had to find $600 to get her car back from the impound – hardly punishing the guilty party (he, I’m guessing, got a longer disqualification – which he’ll ignore – and one of those “pay it off at $1.50 a week” fines big bruv mentions).

What about seizing the vehicle if registered to the offender, or adding a set amount to the total fine if they don’t have a vehicle to offer in lieu?

Since I don’t see how many people could produce ~$12,000 in less than a month as big bruv’s mate had to, I’d suggest another rider saying time payment will be accepted… but the “interest” will be paid off in periodic detention for each week the debt remains unpaid. Then let them spend their weekends with a shovel and mop helping the police clean up accident scenes.

Offence 1: $5,000 fine, disqualified 1 year and warning what next offence penalties will be if within say 5 years.
Offence 2: $10,000 fine, 3 months jail (no time off for good behaviour), vehicle impounded and sold irrespective of owner, diqualifeied for five years.
Offence 3: $10,000 fine, 1 year jail (no time off) vehicle impounded and sold irrespective of owner, disqualified for life.

Lets get the recidivist offenders off the roads and let the sensible social drinkers have the same leeway they enjoy now but knowing if they go over the limit the penalty is severe and will be enforced.

Six months for a first offender and a small fine that you can pay off at $1.50 a week from your dole/DPB/Sickness/Invalids benefit.

When I lived in the UK a good mate of mine was done for her first DIC, she received an eighteen months loss of licence and a 4500 pound fine that had to be paid in full within 21 days.

People who follow the current limit, have a couple of cold ones and drive home aren’t the issue so why the collective punishment.

Drunk drivers will continue to do so as they have no regard for the law or others. Take their licences and they will still get behind the wheel.

The real issue is the repeat offenders who the judges seem loath to punish. “Sir you have only driven drunk nine times and even though you were told last time you would go to jail I think you’re nice man and deserve another chance”

1) driving twice the legal limit should be viewed as approximately 10 times worse than being just over the legal limit as you’re about 10 times more likely to have an accident when you’re that drunk – 2 1/2 times the legal limit is even worse it’s something like 30 times more likely to have an accident (these figures are from memory) – it is not treated that way

2) driving an SUV means you are much more likely to kill the passengers in the car you crash in to

3) Turning right at junctions (left in right hand drive countries) is the most dangerous thing you can do

4) Being young is dangerous

5) Using a cellphone increase your chances of an accident by about fourfold

6) we don’t really know the stats against dope smoking but it’s pretty obvious that it affects reaction time enormously (though it’s hard to kill someone at 5 miles an hour as the old joke goes)

7) Putting a roo bumper on a car pretty much guarantees killing the pedestrian you run over

8 going 40 k over the limit in a built up area (not the motorway note) is equivalent to driving well over the limit in terms of risk

9) there are known death traps on the road

Drink driving policing has hit diminishing returns – by targeting high risk areas (Weekend nights in and out of a city) they can’t seem to get the hit rate below about 2%. Most people have got it – it’s risky behaviour – those that don’t are unlikely to change their behaviour with a limit change. This seems like the police targeting easy stuff ie drop the limit therefore more convictions

So, if we being consistent – the 22 year old person driving an SUV, over the speed limit, while being on the phone, having just finished a toke and then turning right at a junction should be hung drawn and quartered – after they have lost their license for 6 months of course

The police claim that 1/2 of death reductions relate to improvements in drink driving is completely and utterly without foundation.

but let’s not facts get in the way of a bit of moralism and lazy policing

Or so I am told by the Greens.

Why shouldn’t the police voice opinion and comment on drink driving

Why shouldn’t Immigration officials start expressing opinions on who should and shouldn’t be allowed across our borders? Why shouldn’t some Defence staff officer start publicly deriding the government for sending our soldiers overseas? Why shouldn’t someone working for IRD tell the media he doesn’t think we’re paying enough tax?

Because they are public servants, hired to implement the will of Parliament which (in theory at least) should reflect the will of the people.

They are not – however much they might behave as though they think they are – our overlords.

Secondly, even if we as a society wish to listen, how long are they going to trot out the same, failed, strategies time after time, with ever-decreasing numbers attached? In WA the RAC (the local AA) have just headed off a Police / Road Safety Council master plan to arbitrarily lower all speed limits by 10 km/h. That’s right – a dead straight five lane freeway or winding dual carriageway with no safety lane were to be treated exactly the same.

Australia’s National Road Safety Strategy estimates that improving roads would save about 350 lives a year; improving vehicle safety would save around 175 lives; and improving driver behaviour would save 150. In other words, road improvements would save more than twice as many lives as measures aimed at drivers – which is not to say that improving driver behaviour shouldn’t be an aim of any strategy.

As for safer cars, why is it that vehicle buyers often have to pay up to $8000 extra for what ought to be standard safety features (i.e. every safety enhancement ought to be standard). A government serious about road safety would be doing something about making safer vehicles more affordable.

With NZ’s winding and often poorly maintained roads, the proportion of lives which could be saved by roading improvements versus driver-centred strategies is probably higher than that in Australia (i.e. more than twice).

Perhaps when I hear a cop, moustache bristling indignantly, say “New Zealand’s roads are, in many cases, badly designed and maintained death traps and out of step with other countries, so we need to change that”, I might begin to take them seriously on the issue.

The 0.5 target comes from some Australian states, but empirical evidence has previously shown that the rate of 0.5 or 0.8 makes no difference to safety stats or picks up more drivers. Why is this? Something missing in this discussion is that there is already regulation for drink driving via car insurance. Insurance companies include a clause in there cover allowing them to not pay out if the driver is impaired. Impaired does not require 0.8, it could be one glass of wine to be used by the insurance companies. Not everyone knows this, but most people either choose to be a completely sober driver or will be very specific about limiting themselves to one/two glasses of wine with dinner. But if they are out drinking will arrange to catch a taxi home or have a sober driver.

The hard core offenders will drink and drive and are insensitive to any regulatory obligations. The hard core are the target group of road safety where there has been little improvement.

The last review of road safety interventions in 2005 (Ministry of Transport) in table 5 shows that the facotr that has done the most to improve road safety is vehicle improvements. There has been some improvement due to government road safety interventions but the biggest return is provided by better cars. Road engineering improvement has also contributed significantly see table 5 and para 16 of Evaluation of Raod safety outcomes http://www.transport.govt.nz/evaluation-of-road-safety-outcomes-to-2005/

So the challenge for the Minister is to ask his officials – what is the extra road safety improvement provided by new regulation when there is already contractual regulation? Given the road safety statistics – lowest road toll, ongoing trend of decline the marginal cost of additional regulation may easily outweigh the benefits. It may also be that existing regulation via insurance and social norms already achieves the outcome desired by the safety officials. They maybe then better targetted to look at how to work with car manufacturers and road engineering to provide greater safety returns.

Also targetting of the hard core through a different set of incentives shoudl be considered. This group may require quite different tools than the current hit everyone on the head with regulation approach.

There are regular road safety statistics availabel but you would need to OIA Ministry of Transport and the Land Transport Authority.

Re the lady problem you posed, with a zero level you would not be able to drive and would have a good excuse to stay the night, although you would be advised to drink responsibily as driving is not the only thing alcohol impairs.
I see a zero level as reducing the overall volume of law. It would take less law to have a zero level than it does to have a prescribed limit. Part of my preference for the zero level is that it is so simple and clear, dont drink and drive. Yes there are a number of other things that impair driving and I am not for legislating about them “every time you make something idiot proof you just invent a better idiot”. I am in favour of education on those issues and by and large education has had some effect regarding these other driving issues you mention, that you were able to raise them so readily testifies to that. The zero limit would in my opinion improve the existing law and if given the option it is what I would vote for. I accept that you would not vote for it, so be it.