Your Comments

We should follow the majority consensus in Europe and lower the blood alcohol level threshold to approx 0.2 to 0.3 mg/ml (as opposed to the current 0.8mg/ml).

I agree the threshold should be lowered and that the persons licence should be revoked but we all know this does not stop every one getting back into a car when banned, A possible deterrent might be to take their car away for the period of the ban.

I agree with the comments regarding lowering the acceptable limit. Let's be honest here, the majority of drivers in the UK are very poor when they are sober.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that Drink Drivers are a menace on the roads like Ruth Kelly is saying. What is needed is the appropriate action - to ban them from the roads completely. So many times a years ban is held and then they get back in a car and do it again. Why not give them a lifetime ban and see the improvements then!

Why stop there?

How about rounding up the drunking pedestrians, vomiting and urinating on the streets causing nuisance??

and stick a 9pm curfew on all of the bloody teenagers

In answer to comment 9. So if a driver has one drink with a meal he/she is definitely going to loose control of the vehicle & crash. I lost a friend through a drunk driver who mounted the pavement, the driver was totally drunk & many times over the limit. One drink? get real.

Reply to comment 5, Super idea, however, it's still the minority of young drivers that cause problems not the majority, so if you raise the age to 21 it persecutes everyone under that age and restricts them in the employment market and could conceivably depress the life opportunities of the whole of the next generation.

Better still, lets stop having children, then eventually, we wouldn't have any young hooligans at all ...oh ..and no one to pay your pension with their taxes either.

Let's think things through a bit shall we?

It's no good raising this, lowering that and banning the other,how many times have you heard of someone driving with no licience?
What is needed is the police out there on the highway to stop these people before they kill someone,instead of relying on cameras.This of course costs money instead of generating it.

Have any of you proto-Nazis considered the disparity between "I had a pint" and "I had ten pints". There is no definitive legal alcohol limit, at least not one defined in pints. I'm all for punative legislation versus the hyper-inebriated - truly murder by another name. But zero-tolerance? This is excessive and misses the target by a country mile. So a single drink impares judgement? I'd give damn good money to wager I'm shaper than most after two (my limit is one). Many things impair judgement; distracted? Stressed at work? Best mate porking the missus? For sure, this'll mess you up. Can Statutes assist. Like frick. Law can't create a perfect world, but we can castrate the p*ss takers, and avoid demonising the marginal offenders. They're not criminals. That a**ehole in the hedge is; and I'm going to help you string his a55 up.

NIL IS WHAT IT SHOULD BE .NOT HALF OR ONE IT SHOULD BE NONE .

These views maybe commendable for puriest ideals, I agree with 18/21 that most comments are too ready to apply one tar brush to all. There are many broad brush assumptions and statements being made. Does someone who causes a road traffic death by careless driving and were stone cold sober loose thier license for life? Why not life bans for being behind the wheel excissively tired. In the real world there are degrees of risk, zero risk is for everyone to stay in bed! I would not expect and you never see someone consumming alchol and then proceed to set off down the Motorway highly likely unable to control and anticipate situations doing 70. Similarly we do not expect the same of an airline pilot as the risks for loss of life are too high. I was once on a plane over southern England many years ago, there were big thunderstorms and the pilot was throwing the plane around to dodge the clouds rekon had been on the whisky although felt totally confident in his abilities, although would not want to be in same situation with the crowded skies we now have. A local country pub to me gets many drivers who are responsible and know their limits. Typically there for two or three hours over which have their meal and drink. I have observed them and none appear to be under any influence. However if that same person had some earlier drinks that day then the evening could mean are being affected. Being responsible do not get into this situation. I recollect MPs talking on very similar lines that a draconian zero tolerance would penalise responsible drinkers. Many views here are that of Neoprohibitionists. I was at least pleased to read this influence is identified in the United States, do a Google search on 'zero tolerance unfair on responsible drinkers'

**Correction**

I know! ...lets abondon speed cameras and put the 18% of police officers we've lost back on the road.

Unlike speed cameras, a police officer can spot, catch and breathalize a dangerous drink driver ....then if any of you want to shoot him, at least he's been caught **before he crashes into someone and kills them and not after**!

I do not completely agree with a zero tolerance on alchohol, although there is a major problem with drink drivers. I have worked in a wetherspoons pub for over two years now as a bar manager and the majority of drink drivers are the 'older' generation even on a friday and saturday night, I am only 20 myself and think it to be my responsibility to say its not my generation that drink drives its is most definatly the older generation. I cant see why younger, safe and responsible drivers like myself who take driving seriously get the blame for drink driving. Yes there is a problem with drink drivers but dont penalise younger drivers, if there is a zero tolerance it should be for ALL drivers and not just the younger drivers. How many almost dead and old drivers are there causing accidents by not paying enough attention to the road?? they are the ones that should be banned!

here should be a zero limit for alcohol, and anyone coaught drink driving should get a mminimum of 5 years jail sentance and never be able to drive again.

Alcohol + Driving = Death

Simple maths - simple solution - zero limit on alcohol intake and driving - no ifs, buts or just one or just a little. Human psychology cannot deal with anyhting other than the very simple - NO DRINK - or loose your licence for a VERY long time - preferably for ever.

RUTH kELLY,
Should get some facts right glumcoma a medical condicon creeps up on you how many 60yr old get tested if not checked loss of sight. also get get some statiaiic cameras off roads and motorways policecars with cameras i watched a live motorpatrol program caught drivers a number
of affencece not all drinking ect but one guy not smelled of drink but a sarge had seen this before ckecked way high ondrugs so a camera would not have picked him up speeding no insurance mot bad tyres no licence

HE HAD JUST DESTROYED YOUR NEW HOUSE YOUR NEW CAR

FICTION

RUTH KELLY

my dad today was caught drink driving, and i do agree there is no place for them on the road. but some people have problems with their drinking and dont know what they are doing and realise how drunk they are if they are alcholics, my dad for example.

this will ruin his life and my own in a certian way, and all this at 16...

This seems to me to be yet another myopic typical knee-jerk reaction to a problem by a pathetic group of ministers who have no idea how to analyse and understand anything, let alone how to solve any problem! It is typical of politicians that because they have an inability to properly understand anything they focus on attempting to solve the symptoms of any problem instead of addressing the cause!

I doubt very much that there are many inhabitants within this country who are in favour of permitting and encouraging drunken driving. I certainly am totally against drunken driving, but I am also just as much against people driving under the influence of any other drugs. (Alcohol is just one example of a drug.) However, it is in fact quite difficult to objectively determine a person's ability to drive, and how that individual's ability to drive may have been impaired by taking any drug. Quite a lot of scientific research has been executed to attempt to determine a proper objective way to do this, and above all to set realistic and absolute thresholds which can be applied uniformly.

What a lot of people do not now seem to know is that the original research in this area concluded that there was at that time only one objective method which gave any meaningful indication, and that was a test of reaction time. (This also works where any drugs other than alcohol have been taken.) The government (and most other countries' governments have since followed suite) eventually rejected that as the method to be used, not because it was ineffective (it was in fact the most cost-effective and reliable method), but because of one difficulty only, which was essentially political. However, people's reaction time varies quite widely naturally when they have taken no drugs. As a result, it was found if the reaction time specified for safe driving was set at that adjudged optimal a large number of people would fail such a test even when they had not taken any drugs. In some cases it was also actually determined that when some people (particularly those of a nervous disposition) took a small quantity of drugs their reaction time and their driving actually improved! It was also determined that the amount of alcohol present naturally in people's blood varies quite significantly according to a number of factors; for example how much of certain fruits a person has eaten, and what period has passed since they ate them. (It was discovered that certain fruiits and other foods are naturally processed by the body and actually produce alcohol, in proportion to the amount ingested and but also in a proportion varying naturally between people without direct correlation for given amounts between sample individuals.)

The results of this original research are now largely kept from the public, principally because the government desperately wants to conceal that their chosen method is flawed on four main counts:

1) Varying amounts of alcohol are naturally present in the blood of persons who have consumed no alcohol, so any measurement of any increase in blood alcohol should be related to the natural datum at any time;

2) Objective data does not demonstrate any simple correlation between the amount of alcohol which a person has ingested and any impaired ability to drive, although there is data which indicates that amounts of alcohol over a certain significant common threshold do tend to impair the ability of all people to drive well; the problem is that this common threshold is relatively high and at it a certain number of individuals may be severely impaired in their driving. Additionally, as with all drugs, sustained presence of alcohol in the blood results in an immunity to its effects occurring, i.e. at a much higher level.

3) The chosen method targets only the drug "alcohol" and ignores the others including mixes of alcohol with other drugs; it also ignores whether alcohol was actually to blame for an accident, and whether the real cause of the accident was alcohol only! The police have admitted in a significant number of actual cases where a motorist has been breathalized and found to be over the legal limit of blood alcohol level that they were not driving in any way unsafely and they had not been involved in any accident, including by the way one or more government cabinet ministers at various times!

4) Far, far more road traffic accidents involving death or serious injury occur where none of the drivers involved are guilty of having drunk alcohol, than where alcohol is involved. In other words although drinking alcohol and driving is undesirable, most road traffic accidents are caused not by drunken driving but by something else. It would much more effective therefore, if the true desire was to save lives and prevent serious injury, to put most of the effort into solving the real cause of serious accidents. It is quite clear thus that this is not the real reason for targeting drunken driving out of all its proportion as a contributor to accidents; there is clearly a hidden agenda here therefore, which evidently has no basis in reality.

Foolish talk of or demands for a supposed "Zero alcohol" blood level for driving are therefore as fatuous as the term "drink driving", because in such a case some people would fail a test due to the natural level of alcohol in their blood, even where they had not ingested any alcohol. Almost never do the accident statistics recorded by the police note whether the person who has contravened the Highway Code or other traffic laws and actually caused a road traffic accident is the person accused of having drunk alcohol. They generally just assume that a driver who has drunk alcohol is automatically to blame for an accident without considering the actual evidence. Independent studies which have been executed have shown that generally it is in less than 50% of road traffic accidents where one or more drivers have drunk alcohol that it is the driver who has drunk alcohol who was responsible for contravening the Highway Code or other traffic laws and thus causing the accident.

The current method is now accepted by the police as not working. This is why they have now reverted to the methods used prior to the introduction of blood alcohol tests, such as walking a white line. This is an outrageous abuse of justice, since it is an attempt to set totally different thresholds of legality. It means that a driver who passes a breath test and even a urine test could be still be convicted if they failed a white line test for example. This makes complete nonsense of the whole process, because it is an admission that the current blood tests do not produce a meaningful result.

I am completely against drunken driving. I believe that drunken drivers should be punished most severely and even perhaps banned from driving for life. On the other hand I passionately believe in truth and justice. If a person is to be convicted they must be properly and objectively established as guilty, not framed instead. (Unfortunately in this country and the EU things have been going the other way for some time now, and the police state is beginning to get out of control.) I believe the current methods to establish whether or not a person is fit to drive safely, and if they have drunk alcohol or another drug to an extent which could itself be the cause of a road traffic accident are totally inadequate and indeed produce a skewed result. They result in some people who have taken drugs or a mixture of alcohol and other drugs avoiding prosecution and others being wrongfully convicted.

What we need is an adequate method for testing drivers for any drugs which they taken which may impair their driving capability below the acceptable threshold, not just targeting alcohol alone for some ridiculous and irrational reason. So far as the original research showed measuring driver reaction time is the only objective method which has been established as yet. Much more objective research is needed (outside of political influence). Until a new objective method is determined it is quite clear that the present methods of determining a driver's ability to drive safely where drugs may have been taken are unacceptable and ineffective.

Hi all I'm x forces I've been involved in campaigns all over the world This is the way our Government repay us by taxing our fuel so we cant get about, as much as we would like some way of repaying us, I now car share where possible to keep down the expense and i thought we were called Great Britain some joke