by Gareth Hughes
A few days ago the Government announced another set of tough penalties for teen drink drivers.
They have effectively reduced the blood alcohol limit for teenage drink drivers to zero. I think it is a case of youth scapegoating but I’m not complaining about this because we need to cut down on teen drink driving – it’s tragic how many people die or are injured as a result.
Lower the blood alcohol limit for adults too
But it seems a little unfair to me that, while happy to penalize teen drink drivers for having any alcohol in their system, the government is refusing to lower the Blood Alcohol Limit from 0.08 to 0.05 grams per 100 millilitres of blood for adult drivers.
Experts say NZ has one of the highest legal blood alcohol limits for adult drivers in the developed world. Our limit of 0.08 means that a big guy can drink up to 8 drinks over a few hours and still test below the limit.
Personally, I’m a light weight. I could never drink that much and then drive safely. What about you – do you think we should lower the limit for adults?
Alcohol interlocks
Another idea that the government is depending on to reduce our accident rate from drink driving is to put vehicle alcohol interlocks on the cars of repeat drink drivers.
Interlocks are little devices that you have to exhale into. If you test over the limit then they won’t let you start your car.
I think this is a good idea although obviously it won’t always work. For example, if you borrow your friend’s car or you are driving an unregistered car (as some of our most troubled drink drivers may well be) then you can get away without having an interlock.
More emphasis on treatment is needed
Personally, what I think is missing from the government’s drive to decrease drink driving is a focus on the root causes.
In many cases, the cause of drink driving is alcohol addiction. A while ago I asked a question of the Minister which showed me that between 2005 and 2008 only 7% of first-time drink drivers, and just 17% of repeat drink drivers were referred to treatment for alcohol addiction.
It’s hard for me to believe that only 17% of repeat drink drivers have a problem with alcohol. I think that harsher penalties and interlocks will do little to reduce offending alone. Better treatment and education is needed as well – and ALAC agrees with me about this.
What do you think? Would you like to see more drink drivers referred for treatment?
Published in Featured | Health & Wellbeing | Justice & Democracy by Gareth Hughes on Mon, October 4th, 2010
Tags: drink driving, frog blog, Gareth Hughes, Green Party NZ, interlocks, road safety, transport
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Alcohol causes more problems in society than all the so-called illegal drugs.. and yet we condone it, because it is such a huge revenue raiser. I ask why alcohol continues to be treated so differently & why the Alcohol industry/lobby has such political clout, when it causes carnage on the roads & other violence in our streets & houses ? I guess Money speaks the loudest !? Kia-ora
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Gareth, are you aware that the proportion of teen drivers killed in crashes who are legally drunk has gone from almost 40% (slightly better than the 20-34 age group)in the 1980s to just over 15% (slightly better than the 35-59 age group)? Unfortunately the proportion of teen passengers killed by drunk drivers has improved by less than 10 percentage points.
It is also worth noting that the number of drivers aged under 35 involved or killed in fatal crashes has halved since 1987 but the there has only been few percent reduction for drivers over 35 and passengers of any age.
The reduction for those under 35 began with teen drivers and has progressively moved up through the age groups. This is entirely consistent with the introduction of the GDLS with it’s shorter periods on learners and restricted licences for those who received professional training instead of being taught by mum or dad. The most clearcut example of breaking a cycle of violence I have ever come across.
There was a reduction in drunk driving in every age group when the police took over traffic policing in ’92 and when ACC provided the police with a full compliment of booze buses in ’96/97. Only teens had a reduction in between those years. The teen alcohol limit of .02 was introduced in 1993.
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At any given time up to 20% of the adult (over 18) population is addicted to alcohol.
The stuff should be banned like P.
Users, hunted down and ‘containerized’; except of course, for those people who ‘need’ alcohol.
They can be given a shot of inexpensive sherry, every second day, at their local Chemist – sounds like a plan to me!
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The “drug corruption” is already here. The drug is alcohol and the industry behind it is granted favor after favor by the Govt.
The drug booze costs NZ at least 4 billion a year with all the harms, negative health impacts and crime that it causes.
The booze industry forks out a little over a billion in tax.
The Jphm Key and the Government have ruled out making the booze industry pay the cost for the damage its drug inflicts on NZ.
The booze industry spends and donates a lot of money on politicians and political partys.
John Key has a ex-brewry public relations man working for him in the prime ministers office.
For the Nats to do next to nothing to curtail the damage that booze causes New Zealand, and for them to refuse to make the booze industry pay for the damage of their drug is very very strange.
To then have the Nats pretend to be ” tough on drugs” , while pretending that our number one drug, the booze, is not a drug.
Thats pretty bloody corrupt
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“”.Users, hunted down and ‘containerized’; except of course, for those people who ‘need’ alcohol.”"
Please not Sherry. How about a nice Marlborough Savvy.
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Seriously though, we may have more success in minimising harm from drugs by treating them as a medical rather than a criminal problem.
Big boost from the Government tax take from Northland has got to be good.
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Yes, I believe the adult limit should be reduced, and 0.05 sounds good to me.
However I also believe that the penalty for those caught slightly over the limit should be a fine and demerit points, but not a criminal conviction. We have the situation at the moment that those just under the limit get waved on, while those over the limit end up in court with a criminal conviction, and no way for the average person who has had a few drinks to know if they are under or over. The consequences of getting this wrong are disproportionate to the difference in alcohol level, which might be just 10 minutes extra waiting time needed before driving. Leave the courts to those who are significantly over the limit.
Trevor.
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‘Cos Marboro Savvy ain’t punitive.
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I think we are missing the point, the people (youths and adults) who are getting absolutely blotto causing road crashes, fighting in town etc are going to keep doing it regardless of how low the limit is, how much fines are increased or how long jail sentences are.
Lowering limits further is just going to catch more people who are not the problem and waste police time and resources.
If you think banning alcohol will work take a lesson from 1920s prohibiition in USA, that simply wont work.
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@Mr2guy – but it’s not just comlpetely blotto people who cause crashes? It’s also the people who are between 0.05 and 0.08 – i.e., the woman who has had 4 drinks over 2 hours rather than just the two…
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I wasn’t being serious in suggesting banning alcohol (the addicts simply wouldn’t allow it) – but we do present our youth with a big lying double standard when we have such a dangerous, destructive and addictive drug legal – whilst casting people who use other, arguably much less harmfull substances as the lowest of the low.
NZ doesn’t actually have to buy in to EVERY piece of nonsense and propaganda floating around.
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Kerry; as a semi-retired social worker I would say that booze causes ten thousand times the problems of all other drugs combined (leaving aside the curious act of smoking)
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…but I don’t think they have any intention of stopping…. and with their addiction to the green stuff from the lobby… they aren’t interested in having effective laws to stop anyone from doing so.
Someone absolutely wasted on Pot is a sh!t driver too…. and that person is aware that they are in trouble and more often than not is going to be well below the speed limit (observed behaviour folks) and trying to compensate for being zonked. Alcohol reduces ability while it increases confidence, arrogance and aggressiveness. For a teenager, there’s more than enough of those things without the booze.
A cop back in LA observed to me that he’d rather pick up a pot smoker any time. They tended to be cooperative, passive and not to spew in the back-seat of the car. The boozers invariably got aggressive.
So the lower limit is a very good idea, and even a driver blood alcohol of zero is not a ban on ALCOHOL, just on drinking and driving. Which is a a behaviour that society cannot tolerate. I’d go with the lower limit in a heartbeat… I learned to drive before I was of legal age to drink and saw enough of my peers trash perfectly good cars (as well as trees, fences and garages) to be very rigorous about not impairing my judgment. I hold the same views today as 43 years ago.
Hell, the alcohol interlock should be standard equipment on all vehicles… period.
Part of the problem of course, is the public perception that it is somehow funny and acceptable to get sh!t-faced in public. In particular for teens…
Just as one would take care not to tread on a nail, so one should take care not to harm the ruling faculty of the mind. It is what makes us human and getting drunk therefore makes us somewhat less than that.
I have said enough.
BJ
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Mark. I am well aware of that and i agree with reducing the limit to .05.
However banning any drug has simply put the supply into the hands of criminals and caused more problems than it solved.
I do not like the booze culture that says kids should get s- faced every Friday, but I would feel a hypocrite condemning them for it. We used to do it too. My son and his mates are actually a lot better about making sure they have a sober-d than we were.
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of course legalising pot would put a dent in that booze culture…
..i wd rather teenagers gathered in cafes to smoke pot…
..rather than going and getting bladdered…and…and..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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As for referring drunk drivers to “addiction” help – the problem is the lack of general funding for this (includes inmates who have greater need than the average first time drunk driver).
Another area to fund is (community provided) youth venues for the under 18 year olds to socialise free of alcohol, the habits they learn here will change the future of the way we drink – that and cracking down on being drunk in a public place (defining a level of blood alcohol the way we do for drink driving).
Otherwise my preference is for teenagers to be on party pills rather than binge drinking or on marijuana. Allowing the safest of party pills to be legal and tested (reliable) is the best option – especially when cracking down on alcohol supply to minors (otherwise an increase in marijuana use only plays into the hands of suppliers and harms cognition development).
Legalising marijuana and taxing the supply and sales could fund addiction treatment (reducing crime) and also youth venues. However I would regulate access to ration card (over 20) and limit supply, and require any growing for personal use be registered to be legal. I would similarly restrict access to tobacco (and restrict access – and supply amounts – to those existing “addicts” over 20).
I have no great problem with the 1989 and 1999 liberalisation of the laws – all that is required is targeting of public drunkenness/binge drinking (harder to do at private venues). We have significantly reduced drink driving since then by targeting drink driving alone, so we know what works in the real world.
The great question is on the split age how to vote on the issue of 18 year old access to outlets selling alcohol or confine them to bars/nightclubs. If we move on public drunkenness then a slpit age would not be necessary – if we don’t, then it would be a restraint on binge drinking, but not as effective and not a policy that impacts on those over 20 and they binge drink too.
I agree with Trevor29 on not taking those between 50 and 80 before the courts. The evidence does not suggest that this blood alcohol level (50-80) is a significant component of the drink driving statistics. The best statistics are those who die in accidents (as the level is fixed at point of death, not some time later as occurs with those surviving accidents – many being over 80 at the time of the accident and between 50 and 80 only later when tested. The number of those of the last 1000 deaths who were between 50-80 (and with no other drug) is quite low.
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The alcohol in most of the countries is legal, but causes sometimes more damage than some unlegal stuffs.
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