Drink driving�.is enough being done to get the message across?

[AB Asks]

Recent weeks has seen the start of the Christmas drink driving warning adverts on tv. The fact that new adverts have been created suggests that the message hasn't yet got through to people. Does more need to be done to try and stop people drinking and driving? What are your feelings on this issue?

[Oneeyedvic]

The 'do' that I am going to is 30 miles away. I don't particularly want to stay at a hotel as not only would that incur a cost but I would also have to arrange for a dog sitter. Public transport does not exist at that time of night round here and a cab would cost around �80. So, yes I will not be drinking.

I am one of those sad people who can genuinely have a good time with out having to drink. I could in all honesty not have no alcohol - but I do enjoy the taste of a shandy.

What is wrong with the breathalyzer in car ignition solution?

Octavius - we then have another problem - if you are driving to work the next day, how much can you drink to have absolutely no alcohol in your system (or trace amount)?

That would be even more difficult to work out that the current system. - I certainly wouldn't know

[andy-hughes]

Oneyedvic - your advice that to ask someone to drink soft drinks for seven hours would be 'almost criminal' underlines the heart of the drink-driving issue -

our culture has evolved into a belief that in order to have a good evening out, alcohol must be consumed, preferably beyond safe medical as well as legal limits. This will enable the imbiber to brag about his alcohol poisoning - which is what it is - next day by bragging with any number of adjectives - slaughtered - hammered - ratted - trolleyed - etc. ad nauseum.

Until we can disavow people of the notion that intoxication is a vital ingredient of an enjoyable social occasion, we will continue to have drink drivers.

How about "I'm driving so i won;t drink?" Is that so hard?

If you seriously need to be intoxicated in order to enjoy yourself, then you need to give yourself a maturity and personality check.

Be an adult - adopt some responsibility for your lifestyle, and if you have to go out and drink, and you can't or won;t make transport arrangements, then you deserve to be imprisoned and banned for the self-centred obnoxious uncaring drunken buffoon that you surely are.

[Octavius]

I am fortunate in the sense that I work in the city and rely on the underground to get me home. If I go out for a few drinks after work (which is very rare these days), it requires negotiating a hot stuffy and claustrophobic Central Line for an hour, without a seat for most of it. Often I prefer not to drink as sometimes the thought of a pickled journey home is too much to bear (it�s an age thing maybe). I have taxi�d the 15 miles home a few times before and that cost me �80 around 5 years ago.

If I had to get somewhere that was 30 miles out of town and financial constraints meant that I could not stay over or get a taxi, then of course I would drive. But then I wouldn�t drink. Nowadays I have a mini-O and a wife, and we take it in turns or just don�t do the alcohol. Its a simple strategy but it works.

People don�t tend to take much notice of their speedo�s, so once they are plonked in front of their steering wheel with the ignition on, how likely are they to change their minds if their system says they are over the limit? Sure it might work, but that requires as much willpower as not drinking in the first place.

[Oneeyedvic]

First of all Andy-Hughes, I made the comment about lemonade and lime and coke as a bit of sarcasm. I realise that sarcasm doesn't come across well in printed format which is why I put a winking face next to the comment - again, I assumed that people would realise the preceding sentence to be in humour.


Secondly please read my posts properly and don't pick out individual sentences without giving context.

I said in my responses that I will drink a maximum of 4 pints of shandy or two small glasses of wine (and I consider a small glass to be 125ml not 175ml). I have also stated that I am just under 17 stone - this should give you a clue that spaced out over almost 7 hours - again I stated this - (using the typical scenario of alcohol going through your body at a rate of 1 unit per hour), I will be well under the legal drink drive limit.

I wouldn't consider (and I don't think anyone with a modicum of intelligence would consider) than a 17 stone male drinking 4 units of beer over 6 3/4 hours is a "self-centred obnoxious uncaring drunken buffoon" or "deserve to be imprisoned and banned"

I suggest that you take your own advice of give yourself a maturity and personality check and read my posts again and then offer me an apology.

[Oneeyedvic]

Octavius - I was thinking more of a device that would disable your ignition if you were over the limit.

[Octavius]

Well its a nice idea, but it somewhat removes personal responsibility to make the right and legal choice.

Supposing the over the limit one was sitting in the passenger seat or back seat, would the car 'know' not to immobilise?