Kiwiblog

The Herald reports:

Transport Minister Steven Joyce yesterday described existing legal alcohol limits for drivers as “ridiculous”.

Speaking to a conference of traffic experts in Auckland, Mr Joyce said he could drink three-quarters of a bottle of wine in 90 minutes yet still have every chance of being under the legal alcohol limit for adult drivers.

Shouldn’t the test be how impaired one would be at a blood alcohol level, as well as what that means in terms of actual drink.

I see this going the same way as the cellphone debate – a kneejerk reaction with little proof it will actually make a difference to crash statistics.

The Dom Post has a story today that quotes overseas reseach suggesting the cellphone ban will not lead to safer roads – it will just lead to people getting fined for continuing to use their cellphones.

I kept asking on this blog if anyone can quote empirical evidence of a cellphone ban actually leading to fewer crashes, rather than greater fines, but no-one has done so.

Anyway back to Steven Joyce:

But he said heavy advertising when the existing adult limit of 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood was introduced in 1978 had made it difficult for him to gain popular acceptance for a further cut.

“A huge amount of advertising was done at the time which said it was just a couple of drinks and then one an hour.”

The result was a popular misconception that reducing the limit to 50mg – one of 61 ideas suggested in a Ministry of Transport discussion paper – would restrict motorists to little more than one standard drink if they wanted to drive home.

I don’t think that, but the rough test for me is that a couple should be able to share a bottle of wine over dinner, and not be breaking the law by driving home afterwards.

A bottle is almost eight standard drinks.

The discussion paper gives six drinks as the allowance for a man of average height and weight. For a woman, the limit is four drinks.

It says a limit of 50mg of alcohol, based on Australian guidelines, would allow an average man to have two drinks in the first hour and one an hour thereafter.

And presumably a woman would be two thirds of that. So let us say a man would have five standard drinks and a woman three standard drinks from a bottle of wine. At a 50 mg limit they would be breaking the law unless the dinner lasted four hours.

But that isn’t een the most important test. The question that (in my opinion) the Minister should ask is how many accidents are caused by drivers with blood alcohol between 50 and 80. In other words how many crashes would potentially be prevented if the limit was lowered, and how many people would be criminalised for having a bottle of wine over dinner. Again I’d like non-emotional study of the benefits and costs of any lowering.

This 2007 report from Transport on blood alcohol levels of drivers killed in car crashes finds the following:

• 60 drivers found to have a detectable level of alcohol (above 30), and 137 had under 30
• By far the most common level (36/60) had a level of 200 – 300 – around three times the legal limit
• Only three drivers were marginally above the limit (80-100) and they were all under 25 so in fact they were well over their limit of 30
• Only two drivers were in the 51 – 80 range

So most drunk drivers who end up dead are totally plastered. A lowering of the limit to 50 would possibly result in one less fatal crash every six months.

The NZ Herald reports:

A woman who was seven months pregnant when caught drink-driving for the eighth time went straight to the pub after a court appearance yesterday.

Call me judgemental but I think CYF should be grabbing the baby when he or she is born.

Her breath-alcohol level was measured at 994mcg per litre of breath – 594mcg over the legal limit.

Not sure what is more likely to do damage – the high levels of alcohol while pregnant, or the probability of a crash because you are driving while pissed.

It was her eighth drink-driving conviction and her 15th for driving while disqualified.

And just consider how many times she has actually driven drunk and/or disqualified. Several hundred probably.

Brown had denied the two charges but changed her pleas to guilty in January. She was remanded on bail only because she is the sole caregiver of her two children and is looking after her partner’s children while he is in jail, Rotorua’s Daily Post reported.

I have doubts they are particularly safe either.

Two articles on Stuff regarding possible enforcement changes:

In the first they have many ideas from the Police:

1. publicly shaming repeat offenders
2. crushing cars
3. drying out accused drink-drivers in cells
4. automatically fingerprinting drivers who fail breath tests
5. banning alcopop drinks
6. hiring more frontline officers
7. introducing random roadside drug testing.
8. lower the drink-driving limit
9. raise the driving age
10. increase sentences for drink-drivers.

Some of these sound good to me, others less so.

No 1 already happens to some degree if the person is high profile. But yeah one could have a website featuring repeat offenders.

Crushing the cars would be an extreme measure, but worth considering for the worst offenders.

Drying out alleged drink drivers in cells is hard to justify, as they are not yet found guilty. If someone is so drunk they can’t walk etc, then it might be workable.

Banning alcopop drinks is just stupid. That punishes everyone who likes those drinks. Focus on punishing those who break the law, not into turning more people into law breakers.

More frontline officers is a good idea, and is happening.

Random drug testing is also very laudable – but hard to do in practice as drugs like cannabis remain in the body for so long.

Lowering the drink driving limit is canvassed in this second article here. As I have said previously, only a very small minority of crashes invovlve drivers who are just below the legal limit. Most who have been drinking are well over the limit. It is a pity the story runs the claims of those who want the limit lowered, without actually doing any independent research, such as the actual crash statiistics.

Raising the driving age has some merit. I used to support it remaining at 15 as that was the school leaving age and if people are in the workforce, they need to be able to drive. But now the leaving age has gone up, the driving age can also.

Increasing sentences for drink drivers is also laudable. Some of the repeat drink drivers have driven drunk on hundreds or thousands of occassions. Once you get to your third conviction or so, the penalties should be very severe.

The Herald reports that the Government is going to look at lowering the drink drive limit – maybe from 0.8 grams per litre to 0.5.

Before they go too far down the track, they should look at the accident statistics. Very very few crashes have a druver at just below the 0.8 limit. In fact not that many have them justover it either. Many or most are totally trollied and 50% over or double or more over the limit.

So a lowering of the limit may result in few benefits, but lead to many more convictions.

Despite a halving of the road toll in the past 20 years, which is mainly attributed to the campaign against drink-driving, police figures show that the number of people being caught for drink-driving has risen in the past five years – up from 25,133 in 2003 to 34,700 in the first 11 months of last year – after being stable for 15 years.

That shows then that you have a problem with people obeying even the current limit. So lowering the limit will create more criminals, but not greatly lower the road toll.

Many of the crashes are younger drivers also who already have an even lower limit of 0.3.

I think it is nice to be abl to go out with a partner to a good restaurant, dine for three to four hours, and enjoy a bottle of good wine between you during that time. You can do that legally at a 0.8 limit but not on a 0.5 limit.

If the statistics showed lots of crashes caused by people with bllod alcohol between 0.5 and 0.8, I’ be in favour of dropping it. But they don’t.

The ODT reports:

Drunken teenagers at a party funded by a high school’s anti-drink-driving group have trashed a rural Southland hall.

Bottles were thrown at passing cars and into a children’s playground during the out-of-control party, organised by high school pupils using money from the St Peter’s College SADD (Students Against Driving Drunk) committee, last Friday.

Good old Gore never disappoints

Emily Watt in the Dominion Post reports on the coroner’s report into the car crash which killed Peter Dengate Thrush’s wife, brother and father (and father’s friend). I blogged on this at the time.

The intersection between Wairere Road and SH2 is a notorious one, and if you pull out into it you do need to do so quickly as it hard to see in times cars which have pulled out. So the driver was only charged with drink driving, not drink driving causing death and Charles Goodson got only 150 hours community work.

However the coroner’s report found:

• His blood alcohol level was a massive three times the adult legal limit
• He was driving at 118 km/hr to 128 km/hr
• He failed to brake or take any evasive action
• It was heavily raining with poor visibility

Now if you are not pissed, you would not be speeding when it is heavily raining with poor visibility. Sure SH2 can be relatively safe at 120 km/hr when it is daylight and sunny but most of us would never ever drive at those speeds in such poor conditions.

The Police are refusing to lay additional charges, despite the additional evidence found by the Coroner, because they say their decisions were made on the best evidence available at the time. Umm, well isn’t the whole point of new evidence being you reconsider previous decisions based on old evidence???