But the key thing surely is to measure the relevant rates, otherwise the argument is meaningless. Only a significant excess rate would be grounds for any action.

How many of those killed had readings between 20 and 50? How many were below 20? Were the 50-80 stats higher than the others?

Does the evidence suggest that the numbers killed are directly proportional to the height of the readings? What is the shape of the curve?

If the figure was 300, it would be easy to say that regulation is the answer. But it’s not so easy to say that the certain costs to hundreds of thousands of others are justified by the uncertain benefits for three.

Conflict of interest maybe?

It’s called sarcasm. That little ditty was sarcasmatastic. You didn’t at least suspect possible sarky snarkiness of a satirical lyrical nature? Doesn’t appear so. And you thought you were imparting wisdom to a genuine noddy comment. Another sad day for forums everywhere. Mind you, there’s one or two bloody noddy comments around the place so fair enough.

And just for Uglytruth: ‘And let’s limit car engine ratings to no more than 1.0 litre… that would improve safety too’. That should catch everyone else who didn’t twig quickly that the safety part of comment was a sarcastic pisstake.

Seriously… drink-driving used to be a national sport…. right behind cricket and rugby for playing numbers… you can’t have a zero alcohol limit. People would have no choice left but to play an actual sport. The suicide rate would spike quicker than you can say disco inferno at the local ‘you kark it, we park it.’

the roads sure would be a lot safer if you just set a zero alcohol level for all folks driving around.

The roads would be completely safe if you stopped people from exercising their right to use them.

And there would an awful lot less head-ons if you change the speed limit downwards to say 30km/h on local streets and keep it to a safe and steady 55km/h on the open road.

Maybe introduce a little compulsory three minute refresher video to vehicles that runs down the main areas of road safety concern before you start each trip. Just think of it like the safety instructions at the start of a plane ride.

How come cars aren’t sold with roll cages too? A car can still roll at 30kms, can’t it? And I don’t see any crash helmets. Well… blow me down… that might be a bit safer.

I have to say that I was fuckin amazed by how much piss people can put away and still be under the limit.. seen it done on the 7pm sobbers and dobbers… 8 beers or something…or was it more than that even? I’m like… whaaaaat?? no way!!

But they’ve got breath testers to see how close to the limit they are. If you had a tester you’d know where you stood… otherwise most people play it safe and don’t cut it that fine.

I don’t know the statistics, but surely we should actually be aiming to “guide” our idiot judges into proper sentences for the bad offenders rather than many more minor sentences for small infractions.

But it often seem that those who condemn and want to criminalise someone for driving after a beer at Christmas dinner, are the same who’ll defend the alcoholic who wants to keep driving after the 34th conviction.

How many drivers continue to drive despite multiple convictions for drunk driving, or driving without a license, or driving while disqualified? The law means nothing to them.

Nothing against reason is lawful.
People have the common law right to ordinary use of public roads (there is also the corresponding duty of care).
To say that a licence is required for something that you already have a right to do is absurd, and cannot be lawful.

People often confuse legislation with law. They’re not the same thing.

Do the stats take into account whether they would have crashed anyway- how many people die every year on the road and how many of them happen when they had zero limit? The herald are a bunch of c&nts.

Which begs the question: did the Herald editor have a tipple before penning their diatribe? If not, maybe they should have.

From the common law:

Nihil quod est contra rationem est licitum. Nothing against reason is lawful.

Nihil quod inconveniens est licitum est. Nothing inconvenient is lawful.

The relevant stat is how many crashes are done between 50 and 80, regardless of your legal limit.

No, DPF’s point is valid. It is a distortion to include instance of drivers who are not legally allowed to drive at 50ml/l. They are already deemed less capable of driving at that level of blood alcohol, so them showing up in the stats serves no point other than to reinforce the current law for drivers of their age group.

Unless you think that the discrimination today is simply ageist and that younger drivers are equally capable of driving a blood alcohol levels as older drivers. That is a wholly different question however.

Great argument.

About what I would expect from you.

Reason completely absent.

I honestly wonder what makes people like you “tick” !

Liberals- they’re totally psychologically fucked up.