two cheers for the Association of Chief Police Officers
Deputy Chief Constable Suzette Davenport of the Association of
Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has suggested that the legal drink
drive limit ought to be cut to zero. Her view is that
this would drastically reduce the number of people killed or
seriously injured on our roads each year. This comes only a
short time after the Government rejected the recommendation in the
North report that the legal drink drive limit be reduced from 80mgs
of alcohol in 100ml of blood to 50mg/100ml.
DCC Davenport was speaking as ACPO launched
its Christmas anti‑drink driving campaign. Blake Lapthorn's
Motoring Offences team has
already advised drivers to avoid alcohol at all occasions not just
Christmas parties, where driving is envisaged, in particular the
morning after the event.
The question is whether or not the legal drink
drive limit ought to be cut to zero.
Everyone is in favour of safer roads.
Alcohol impairs a person's ability to drive and makes them a more
dangerous motorist. The issue is therefore how to stop people
drinking and driving.
In our view reducing the drink drive limit
would help to make the position clearer for motorists. If the
legal drink drive limit was reduced to 50mg/100ml of blood, or
better still 10mg/100ml in blood, then all motorists would know
that if they drank an alcoholic drink then they would be running
the risk of being over the legal limit.
Everyone knows what happens if you are
convicted of drink driving or related offences; the
disqualification is mandatory and that ban will be for at least 12
months. In addition you will be fined, required to carry out
a community penalty or in the most serious cases could be sent to
prison. The punishments are well known – so it is not
ignorance of the consequences that leads people to drink and
drive. Ignorance of the legal drink drive limit is a factor
in our view and so a lower, clearer, more understandable drink
drive limit would assist in reducing the number of people who drink
and then drive.
So why not reduce the legal drink drive limit
to zero? As we suggested last week, everyday items such as
mouthwash do contain alcohol. If a person were to be detected
with such limited alcohol in their system then under the present
guidelines they too would be disqualified for at least 12
months. That in our view would be unfair and would undermine
people's respect for and confidence in the law.
So whilst we applaud DCC Davenport's
intentions, the fact remains that a zero limit would be neither
workable nor command the respect of the public.
However it is always useful to look at this
important issue and we wholeheartedly support a reduction in the
legal drink drive limit to something approaching zero. We
re-iterate our advice to all motorists to avoid drinking altogether
where driving is envisaged.
