Drink Driving
Two articles on Stuff regarding possible enforcement changes:
In the first they have many ideas from the Police:
- publicly shaming repeat offenders
- crushing cars
- drying out accused drink-drivers in cells
- automatically fingerprinting drivers who fail breath tests
- banning alcopop drinks
- hiring more frontline officers
- introducing random roadside drug testing.
- lower the drink-driving limit
- raise the driving age
- increase sentences for drink-drivers.
Some of these sound good to me, others less so.
No 1 already happens to some degree if the person is high profile. But yeah one could have a website featuring repeat offenders.
Crushing the cars would be an extreme measure, but worth considering for the worst offenders.
Drying out alleged drink drivers in cells is hard to justify, as they are not yet found guilty. If someone is so drunk they can’t walk etc, then it might be workable.
Banning alcopop drinks is just stupid. That punishes everyone who likes those drinks. Focus on punishing those who break the law, not into turning more people into law breakers.
More frontline officers is a good idea, and is happening.
Random drug testing is also very laudable – but hard to do in practice as drugs like cannabis remain in the body for so long.
Lowering the drink driving limit is canvassed in this second article here. As I have said previously, only a very small minority of crashes invovlve drivers who are just below the legal limit. Most who have been drinking are well over the limit. It is a pity the story runs the claims of those who want the limit lowered, without actually doing any independent research, such as the actual crash statiistics.
Raising the driving age has some merit. I used to support it remaining at 15 as that was the school leaving age and if people are in the workforce, they need to be able to drive. But now the leaving age has gone up, the driving age can also.
Increasing sentences for drink drivers is also laudable. Some of the repeat drink drivers have driven drunk on hundreds or thousands of occassions. Once you get to your third conviction or so, the penalties should be very severe.