A useless test report
The HoS reports:
Alcohol watchdogs are calling on the Government to fast-track drink-drive reforms after a Herald on Sunday test showed adults could consume almost a six-pack of beer and still beat the breathalyser. …
Two adults – one male and one female – drank several bottles of beer and still tested under the limit during a controlled test at Pukekohe Park.
However, instructors rated their driving after having the drinks as “very aggressive” and “not safe”.
This is such a beatup.
First of all they do not tell us how many bottles or cans were consumed, how big the bottles were, what strength the beer was, over what time period was it consumed, was there food also, and how big or small the people were.
One can not make any sort of meaningful conclusion without that information.
The crash statistics show that most fatal accidents involving alcohol, had the driver at around three times the legal limit. These are the people that should be targetted, rather than hundreds and thousands of law abiding New Zealanders.
On average only one fatal crash every six months has the driver with a blood alcohol limit of between 50 and 80. Lowering the limit will do very very little to lower the road toll in my opinion, but will result in many more people being prosecuted.
UPDATE: I’ve been told the print edition of the HoS has much more info, spread over three pages, and this covers many of my criticisms about the test. I’ll go buy a copy later today.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:44 am
No need to cloud social control propaganda with the facts DPF
September 20th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Let the MSM carry on with writing that sort of tosh, all it will achieve is that their reader numbers continue to plunge. I suggest people are actually getting smarter all the time and there will come a point that they simply refuse to even read these clear beat-ups by some junior journo.
The sad thing is that our so called politicians will see this as yet another boost to their nannyisms.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:00 am
Those stats only show the drivers that were killed and their alcohol level. Using just these numbers is misleading. Consequently you should then argue that the alcohol level should be raised rather than lowered.
More interesting is the number of accidents involved where the driver was impaired and their alcohol level. Also the injuries and deaths they caused, not just to themselves, but to others. Would be interesting to get those numbers from somewhere.
[DPF: Those stats are not available as far as I can tell. So one has to use the best stat that is available]
September 20th, 2009 at 8:04 am
“Students Against Drunk Driving acting general manager Julie Elliotte said a pass from a police breathalyser was no assurance of competence behind the wheel”
no it doesn’t as the person may just be naturally incompetent and still be given a licence. perhaps they should allow anyone to do a driving competence test after consuming a six pack
(I reckon I could still drive better then at least 70% of the idiots on the road now)
September 20th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Well summarised David. There’s nothing like lying with statistics, but what would a newspaper know about that?
In fact if this conclusion with such scant data was put forward to a business for say, a capital project, then no doubt the decision-makers would be asking the same questions as you do. Somehow this falls down for govt issues in the public arena. Why is that?
September 20th, 2009 at 8:12 am
They should make a short movie too – Alcohol madness……
……….the thrilling new sequel in the “do as we say or it’s madness” saga.
Remember to catch the first installment “Reefer Madness”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM_vLk1I6G4
September 20th, 2009 at 8:43 am
John Key said there would be no more nanny state. This very much like the smacking legislation – the responsible driver are going to be affected. I have driven through many check points but never asked for my licence. Those who cause fatalities frequently drive without a licence. I would far rather have to show my licence that not be allowed to share a bottle of wine over a meal. The argument is as some people with not be able to stop a half a bottle of wine with a meal because they have an alchemist problem punish everyone.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:45 am
“Students Against Drunk Driving acting general manager Julie Elliotte” —- Who pays this ones wages then may I ask?
September 20th, 2009 at 8:57 am
The wailings of the same wowsers of old.
Only the despicable and loathsome Geoffrey Palmer and the Law Commission will use this “research”.
September 20th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Personally I’m all for a zero (or close to zero) alcohol breath test for driving. I don’t like the idea of mixing any alcohol at all with controlling large fast moving objects made of glass and steel. I would never tolerate it with staff using forklifts and reach-trucks at work so why tolerate it on the open road? DPF is right about the article however. The full conditions of the test are not stated at all. It was simply done to create something for the journo to write about. An utterly meaningless and pointless article.
September 20th, 2009 at 9:24 am
The test subjects drank several bottles of beer and then recklessly polluted Gaia’s precious atmosphere with evil carbon dioxide. Haven’t these drunks listened to Keisha Castle-Hughes and Xena? I heard that people just under the alcohol limit were still 80% less likely to buy carbon offsets to atone for their sinful behaviour. The government needs to do something for the sake of our children.
September 20th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Richard Hurst – I understand your point but the key is to find the balance between dangerous and acceptable (like all things). To take an absolute view is an easy answer, but it rarely addresses the problem because problems tend to be complex in nature.
September 20th, 2009 at 9:36 am
“First of all they do not tell us how many bottles or cans were consumed, how big the bottles were, what strength the beer was, over what time period was it consumed, was there food also, and how big or small the people were.”
Thats not true David. The key point is “and still tested under the limit during”. So the analysis has a measurement to test. What this pathetic test is missing is an actual measurement for results. “instructors rated their driving after having the drinks as “very aggressive” and “not safe”.” just doesnt cut it. And there is no mention of a control. Ie how did these two people drive before they were drinking.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Absolutely. But not having the actual stat available, doesn’t mean you should use a lesser stat (the number of drivers who kill themselves between those levels of intoxication), and claim it is the stat you want (the number of fatal crashes caused by drivers at that level of intoxication).
September 20th, 2009 at 11:31 am
The “one death” statistic is not really the point. How about the near misses or accident where the is injury. However making safer cars and safer roads probably contributes more to road safety than bossy rules on road safety for which there are far too many. It has even got to a point where these bossy rules are really about revenue raising than making a serious attempt at road safety.
September 20th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
At least the Herald site is also looking at the real hidden road danger – driving under the influence of marijuana.
Bet Philu sees no fire from this happy smoke…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10598437
September 20th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
The HoS report above has several problems:
• It is not objective and lacks detail.
• It implies that the existing alcohol breath levels are inadequate; and were therefore not established scientifically in the first place.
• Many people on the road are already “very aggressive” and “not safe” even with zero blood-alcohol.
It would have been better to carry out a blood-alcohol test instead as this would have given better objectivity.
As DPF and others have mentioned; this does indeed look like a beat-up.
Just another example of ‘penalise the majority for the actions of the (very) few’.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Even if the HoS numbers were right, that isn’t the problem. Most reasonable folks are sufficiently paranoid about the 0.08 limit that they drink far less than would be needed to hit the 0.08 limit just to be sure that they don’t accidentally go over. Drop the limit to 0.05, and even if folks were drinking less than what would be necessary to hit 0.05 beforehand, they’d still reduce consumption to reduce the chance of going over the new lower limit by accident. If most folks reckon a drink an hour about right to stay under 0.08, how many folks wind up cutting down to one drink a night to avoid the chance of hitting 0.05? Their reduced enjoyment of a night out ought to count for something.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Having successfully passed emergency response driving courses with NZ Fire Service and St Johns with ongoing reassessments, I am more aware of the inadequacy of our driver assessment system than some. The purpose of the training undergone was to drive quickly and safely to answer a call for help without creating any further incidents. To drive a vehicle safely on our roads for joe/joanne public however we have to exhibit no more than a general competence with a vehicle at road speed and no hazards in view along with a fairly high awareness of the road rules. We all know when most accidents, or as we tend to call them smashes, occur, they nearly always have several contributing causes, inattention, road surface or shape, visibility, misjudgment, mechanical failure, or other and the easiest of these to police with a reasonable degree of cost recovery are those associated with speed, alcohol impairment or lack of provable maintenance ie WOF/Rego. Ongoing assessment of competence with aging, youthful exuberance, deteriorating physical ability, medication affects- legal and illegal and competence with differing vehicles and classes of same is nonexistent. To fly different models of aircraft one has to exhibit competence with each and severe penalties for non compliance. With vehicles however small car to panel van, light truck, no load or fully loaded, fourwheel drive, front wheel drive, rear wheel drive,. no need to demonstrate competence or understanding of the vastly different skills needed when things go pearshaped.
However the punishment regime will continue to target the high profile ,easily justified but increasingly ineffective policing we see now. 160 or something DEA notices wow! how many were just over and no serious impairment compared to how many light runners, wheel stands or burns, idiotic lane changes, right hand turns without indicating to avoid giving way and speeding, were not picked up while the well resourced checkpoints were in operation.
The most significant reduction in the carnage on our roads, fatal and nonfatal has come as a result of the vastly improved safety of our vehicle fleet, just compare the figures correlated to the surge in modernisation.
By all means remove drunks from our roads and by drunks I mean repeat offenders at 2 x or more over the limit, continue the education, look for examples of poor driving, sort the inattention problems, put speed cameras in the black spots, mandatory upskilling driver training and stop wasting resources on blanket actions to maximise revenue and ticket figures.
Before the hollering starst I drive after responsible drinking, and I still help when things go wrong for others as an emergency responsder. My only serious accident was hitting a vehicle pulling out from a farm paddock gate in good vis and zero alcohol in my blood and the other vehicle had obscured vision and just kept coming on my left.
September 20th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Ahem.
I authored the story being discussed – and I’d like to point out that the story David linked to is just a short news pointer. Te main story, spread over three pages, feature four comedians, a late-model BMW, a police-grade breathalyzer, a heap of booze, and two professional driving instructors.
That story is here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10598494
The print version also has a nice table illustrating breath-alcohol readings and driving performance of my test subjects over time.
The vast majority of critics will find themselves satisfied, I hope.
Cheers,
Matt