The first drink drive ad was shown in 1964, that's 50 years of campaigns, yet we still loose loved ones each year. 

 

In the last 50 years road casualties caused by drink driving have fallen dramatically, but in 2012, there were still 230 deaths due to drink driving – accounting for 13% of all road fatalities. By drinking and driving, you risk your life, those of your passengers and others on the road.

Any amount of alcohol affects your ability to drive. You risk a fine of up to £5,000, a minimum 12-month driving ban and a criminal record.

 

Read: It's your choice on a planet populated by just you. But it's absolutely not your choice when the lives of others can and will be effected.

 

Don't forget, even if it's only you in the car, and pray the worst doesn't happen, but when it does, there's the firemen, paramedics, bystanders... I honestly don't know how they cope.

 

Latest video available on BRISKODA:TV Personally the last 15 seconds says it all. Don't be an eejit.

 

Find out more, the law, the consequences on the think site: http://think.direct.gov.uk/drink-driving.html

I personally think the law should have a zero tolerance on alcohol and driving.

I personally think the law should have a zero tolerance on alcohol and driving.

I disagree. There's a good case to be made for lowering the blood alcohol limit from 80 to 50mg, but when you get down to trivial levels then there's no evidence at all to say it affects your abilities. If someone had a pint with their lunch, then drove home after work four or five hours later then they are not a danger.

I've been more 'drunk' drinking orange juice cordial mix all night. I was so high on e numbers it was enlightening!

 

A low enough number would be good. I think the biggest issue forwards is that morning after scenario. Get home having not had a drink, grab a couple of malts... scary how easily you could be over a lower next morning limit.

If you drink at lunch regardless it being a pint - In my eyes if you get stopped and you are under the influence at all then you should be punished.

I bet a lot of people who are classed as drink drivers aint legless when caught they are simply over the limit as they though 2 pints would suffice and not bring them over.

If you drink at lunch regardless it being a pint - In my eyes if you get stopped and you are under the influence at all then you should be punished..

But having some alcohol in your blood/breath is not the same as being under the influence.

If you have a mouthful of beer then drive, it won't affect you at all. Not one bit, but it would be enough to show on a breathalyser. That is not what the law is there for.

Whilst I am in favour of a lower drink-drive limit, what really frightens me is some of the antics of drivers who are stone-cold sober. I always am staggered when it's announced in our local rag something along the lines of "2000 drivers stopped over Christmas and 50 were found to be over the limit" So 1950 people were driving in such a manner or their vehicle condition was such that the Police had good reason to stop them and breathalyse them. Now that is scary  13% of fatalities linked to alcohol. 87% for other reasons - I'd like to see the breakdown of reasons. 

The first anti drink driving advert appeared to be a plea to stop women making men drive after 8 whiskeys LOL 

 

I don't think the drink drive limit needs changing, and in fact I though it was impossible to implement  a zero policy as the human body naturally produces ethanol? What needs to change is people's mind set, yes enjoy a pint with a meal if you've been well hydrated throughout the day and have an hour chatting after with non- alcoholic drinks, fine but if you feel it dont drive. If your dehydrated and you have a quick one before driving it could affect you more then you think. Those who are seriously drunk will not be thinking straight, you'll never stop blind drink driving, however you might stop the cheeky two pinters.

 

In fact what would be a better change is the punishment, if you kill someone drink driving or dangerous driving it should be classed as murder and the punishment should be par with murder, when you get behind the wheel of a car you should think of it as a loaded weapon which can kill a whole family with one pull of the trigger.    

My big point on drink driving is that it has successfully become generally socially unacceptable a thing to do. Yet the punishment for someone merely detected is pretty standard regardless of level. I do have some empathy for the morning after person who may feel fine and genuinely believe that they are not over the limit with no scientifically accurate way to determine their level due to the number of variable factors which will affect the recovery period in any given individual. The person who has had 2/3/4/5 pints and then decided to get into a car and drive regardless, is subsequently stopped and tests positive, gets more or less the same treatment. I would leave it as is but ramp up heavily the minimum ban period based on specific circumstances leading up to committing the act. 

 

What actually annoys me more with punishment's is that a person who is over the legal drink drive limit and driving down the road, has slower reaction times and impaired judgement and rightly so faces actual impaction punishment if caught. A person driving along perfectly sober with no impairment, consciously decides to remove a hand from the controls, lift a mobile phone and send text messages, use facebook and read stuff on the screen etc etc and these absolute pieces of crap are not even looking where they are going at all, not just a slower reaction time, but zero reaction time and complete impalement = 3 points and £60/£100 fine......... What an absolute pathetic system. Should be at minimum if seen doing this by the police, receive the same minimum sentencing as drink drivers who at least are looking where they are going! 'Texters' as they seem to be referred to don't swerve or brake to late, they plough straight through some poor sod.   

I think a step forward would be to make it compulsory to carry alco breath test device in your car, just as is in France. That would surely help reduce the number of unintentional morning after events. It won't stop the small minority of cretins though that just choose to ignore the law, but reducing it to zero BA levels is too draconian. I said elsewhere the cash would be better spent raising the standard of driver education than trying to police a complete ban on blood alcohol. 

 

I would add however, that the test meters you can buy in Halfords are next to useless. I bought a load recently, partly because I take my car to Europe regularly, and partly because I want to make sure I'm OK to drive after a night out. I have a slight colour blindness (red green deficient which is fairly common among males, manifests occasionally as difficulty distinguishing between green and red...unsurprisingly) which makes detecting the change in the colour of the crystals really difficult. My advice spend some money and buy a decent electronic one, the best "mod" you can make to your car in more ways than one.

I think a step forward would be to make it compulsory to carry alco breath test device in your car, just as is in France. That would surely help reduce the number of unintentional morning after events. It won't stop the small minority of cretins though that just choose to ignore the law, but reducing it to zero BA levels is too draconian. I said elsewhere the cash would be better spent raising the standard of driver education than trying to police a complete ban on blood alcohol. 

 

I would add however, that the test meters you can buy in Halfords are next to useless. I bought a load recently, partly because I take my car to Europe regularly, and partly because I want to make sure I'm OK to drive after a night out. I have a slight colour blindness (red green deficient which is fairly common among males, manifests occasionally as difficulty distinguishing between green and red...unsurprisingly) which makes detecting the change in the colour of the crystals really difficult. My advice spend some money and buy a decent electronic one, the best "mod" you can make to your car in more ways than one.

 

Half of the idea behind it in France was to have a nationally approved tester in every vehicle so that every Police one didn't need to carry expensive to purchase and maintain equipment, requiring the driver to use in their presence having already committed the offence, not just for a person to keep themselves right. In the UK keeping such a device in the car would not necessarily prevent the offence being committed as people have been prosecuted without even starting the engine or even getting into the drivers seat. Either way was a failure in France and was never enforced, then left as such indefinitely within months. EU told them it was illegal, they forced it anyway and then big government corruption from it's point of inception with contracts to produce them was the final nail in the coffin and the the police questioning it. Unintentional morning after events can be easily solved by self control and not consuming so much that after 8 hours sleep you are still going to be over the UK's limit which is one of the highest on earth anyway! And for those who drink late unable to get 8 hours sleep before they need to drive... can enjoy their ban! Any testing device would never be a sure thing only a very very rough guide and as such still leaving a driver to assume they are under the limit, at a point when they are already questioning their own fitness to drive. As here it has been in the past with specifically electronic ones in the UK both cheap and reassuringly expensive ones, is that people have taken them as fact and then got caught, then cried about their made in China toy and they didn't know etc. Another argument against is that with an unapproved / calibrated device is that if you didn't have it telling you all was well when you were unsure, would you have risked it or waited longer until you were sure you would be safe and legal. They have been heavily criticised all over the UK over the years, for those reasons. 

The only sensible answer is wait longer. It can't be too hard to make the development ce over sensitive. Self restraint is of course sensible but many people struggle with that concept. Personally I'd prefer to go by data, and not feel or guesswork. It's all to easy to drink a bit more / later than you planned, so having a measurement device has to be a good thing. Whether the current domestic devices are sufficiently accurate is s separate issue. The tech it there, and sufficiently accurate for police forces to use for the initial test. If you completely ban drinking and driving how the hell is anyone going to know for sure that they have 0 BA? Wait 48+ hrs before driving? Is that really practical? How can you police it? I'm not defending drunk drivers by any means, but if society decided we must not take any risks at all then let's ban motor vehicles from any urban environment and fit 20mph speed restrictions on them. You cannot legislate for the tiny moronic few with such an impact on the sensible majority. We're human, and sadly morons who recklessly cause the deaths of others are spread randomly throughout society. Not much will change that.

Just a point about those french breath testers.... totally useless! i worked for the port of dover for a while and crossed over to france quite a bit was given a few to keep in my car. one night i got completely plastered and thought i would test one, nothing did not even hint that i was over any limit and i was never stopped to check if i had any in my car. theu are a plain and simple con. 

IMO, whilst there is an allowance to drink people will always push the boundries.

The only thing I will drink if I am driving is one pint of larger shandy in the summer as I find it refreshing. One pint of anything is pointless to me and only really drink to get drunk.... Which is just a few times a year, or on holiday (I'm on one now and have drank more in the last 10/12 days than I have the entire year I reckon :p )

But each to their own.

Edit; The other main issue other than people pushing boundaries is the morning after the night before. Some are not aware or don't take this into account, so a media awareness campaign would help this.....

Returning to this subject, the law in France stated you need TWO of these testers, so as to always have a spare… The instance you "Use" the spare, you only have one, thus you break the law to drive. You effectively then need THREE! The funny thing is, its still fairly common place in France, to have wine with a lunchtime meal!

Returning to this subject, the law in France stated you need TWO of these testers, so as to always have a spare… The instance you "Use" the spare, you only have one, thus you break the law to drive. You effectively then need THREE! The funny thing is, its still fairly common place in France, to have wine with a lunchtime meal!

 

Actually it was quite clear on this point as to not cause confusion. The legislation (available in clear English on the French department of interiors website) requires only 1 'unused' to be carried / produced on request. Carrying a minimum of 2 has only ever been stated as advice / good practice, mainly by places that profit from their sale. The entire thing is pointless now anyway, since its essentially scrapped. At the time the French brought in a massive wave of high impact changes under the banner of improving road safety, most of it has fallen flat on it's behind with even the Police refusing to enforce and actively obstructing publicly some of the lunacy that was passed. Overall it has been a successful case of the people not accepting the decision of their elected officials and telling them NON.