Blood Alcohol Level
The comments found on this story in the Daily Mail, show the uninformed nature of many 'pressure groups'. Despite the fact that the current level has only been in operation for a few years, and that for many years the level of drink driving has decreased, Labour's review of road safety proposes reducing the level from 80mg per 100, to 50mg per 100.
Clearly, the fact that the drink-driving levels were reducing for many years, shows that the current level does act as a deterrent. What must have changed in recent years is that the belief that the consequences of flouting the law are not severe, has grown. Thus, more people are taking risks. The solution, therefore, is simply to increase penalties, not to attempt to criminalise more law-abiding people.
What is more annoying than this government tinkering, however, is the comments from 'road safety' campaigners:
Road-safety campaigners welcomed the move but called for the ministers to reduce the limit to zero. [...]To all intents and purposes, 50mg is zero. To reduce it any further, especially to Zero mg per 100, is completely barmy. As this website says, the body naturally produces alcohol:
Elizabeth Davidson, whose 26-year-old daughter Margaret, a doctor, was killed by a dangerous driver last year, said: "This is a step in the right direction but the limit should really be zero.
The human body produces its own supply of alcohol naturally on a continuous basis, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s called endogenous ethanol production. Therefore, we always have alcohol in our bodies and in some cases people produce enough to become legally intoxicated and arrested for DUI.You would have thought people who campaign in the area would have been aware of such an obvious flaw in their argument. Clearly not.
2 Comments:
Here in the US, there have been a variety of groups and campaigns that hate alcohol like MADD, SADD, etc... I am 32 and I am old enough to remember that the slogan was first "Don't Drive Drunk." OK, fine, no arguement with that. Nobody wants someone who has had a case of beer followed by a 5th of bourbon getting into his car. Then it changed into "Don't Drink and Drive." A subtle difference. Or that other BS, "Impairment begins with the first drink."
God forbid somebody goes out and has a couple of drinks over dinner. Stopping drunk driving may have been the idea years ago, but now the whole thing has devolved into what is basically the Temperance Union.
Alcohol = bad. I feel that deep down these people are killjoys and wet blankets, opposed to any kind of human enjoyment and happiness that comes through drink and drinking socially.
Very true...I cannot imagine many people opposing an increase in sentences for drunk drivers. If you make such a stupid choice, you deserve what you get.
But really, an attempt to criminalize more and more law-abiding people, is simply crazy.
Perhaps people will realise that once smoking has been banned for 'public-health' reasons, the campaigners will not simply go away...and alcohol is in their sights.
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