KEY POINTS:
On the face of it, reducing the blood-alcohol limit for drivers to the same level as in Australia would seem a prudent, obvious next step in cracking down on drink-driving. The permissible number of standard drinks here, at four for men and three for women in the first hour of drinking, with one per hour after that, seems extraordinarily high.
In Australia, the first hour allows for the equivalent of just two for men and one for women, with one an hour afterwards. Our rules would mean that at a four-hour summer barbecue, a man could have seven 330ml beers containing 4 per cent alcohol, such as Lion Red, and a woman could swill six standard glasses of wine and then take to the wheel. Few would surely consider driving after that. Not so. Many thousands do drive over even that generous limit every year and are convicted of drink-drive offences.
Which is where the need or effect of a reduction in the limit comes into question. The police are pushing for change, presumably because they judge that those now driving alcohol-affected but not over the limit are having accidents and putting lives at risk. Lowering the threshold is intended to cut the volumes imbibed before driving, not broaden the client bases of the booze buses and checkpoints.
But we are yet to see the evidence that those between 0.8 grams of alcohol for each litre of blood and 0.5 grams, as in Australia, are an actual danger. Although the equivalent levels of standard drinks described above would make it seem likely, some kind of objective, scientific answers should be forthcoming. The Government is open to examining the case for a lower limit and it will need to think carefully about the merits of such a measure. Has
the Australian experience of drink-driving improved since the lower limit took effect? Is 0.5 grams the magical number or does a driver's capability differ little between the two? Is some limit closer to zero but taking account of medicinal alcohols and the like a better move still?
Whatever the limit, the major threats on our roads will remain the heavy, recidivist drinkers who ignore any legal constraint. Already the thousands convicted annually for drinking more than the standard drink limits prove that. They are drinking more than the seven beers or six wines at our barbecue. Chances are that they will still drink to excess and drive if a lower test is imposed. Their greatest deterrent is the risk of being caught and subjected to punishments
that will hit their pockets, hard, and their liberty. A government with aspirations to be tough on law and order should turn its attention as a priority to these potential road killers. More options for the confiscation of vehicles, as for boy racers, and harsher penalties for repeat offences, earlier than now, are among measures which might help. Boosting the regularity and visibility of police checkpoints, which do seem to have faded from view other than before
Christmas and on the rare weekend daybreak experiments on Auckland motorway junctions, will be vital. Attitudes to use of alcohol need to change and raising the drinking age will no doubt be reconsidered by this Parliament.
If the police and justice departments can provide evidence that a broader group of impaired drivers will be removed from the roads if the Australian blood-alcohol level is adopted, then the Government should move on that too.
A drink-drive campaign which has by common agreement helped halve the road toll over the past two decades cannot be allowed to drift.
The fact that many drivers would be taken aback by the existing allowance for standard drinks shows just how vigilant New Zealanders are now and how unacceptable drinking before taking the wheel has become.
