Memorandum from The Richardsons Group
(DDD 03)
We all deeply sympathise with families who lose
their loved ones as a result of other people's anti-social behavior.
Unless we have experienced it, we can only imagine the heart ache
and grief that follows the injury or death of a loved one in a
car accident.
I still write however to object to the proposed
law change, that will reduce the legal limit from 80mg to 50mg
of alcohol per 100ml of blood.
We are told that this move will save 100-300
lives per year. There seems to be no good evidence to support
this claim, and in any event, road fatalities in England are currently
lower than almost anywhere in Europe.
What is certain however, is that responsible
social drinking by the vast majority, and the viability of pubs,will
be needlessly jeopardized if not decimated.
I am opposed to the destruction of our social
fabric, by the elimination of reasonable social drinking. I do
not believe that someone with 75 mg of alcohol in their blood,
is a menace on the roads.
How extraordinary that having not vigorously
enforced the current limit, that it is thought by the authorities
that there is a need to reduce it.
Most alcohol related accidents, involve drivers
who are well over the 80mg limit, sometimes by as much as two
or three times. These are the people that should be targeted.
If there is a strong desire to reduce the number
of road deaths by 100-300 per annum, instead of decimating responsible
social drinking, our social fabric and the pub trade, I suggest
the implementation of some of the following measures.
1. Enforce the current 80mg limit.
2. Ban drivers who are involved in divorce proceedings
because they are distracted.
3. Ban drivers who are planning weddings for
the same reason.
4. Ban drivers who are travelling with an argumentative
spouse for the same reason.
5. Ban drivers who are travelling with badly
behaved children for the same reason.
6. Ban drivers who are listening to Sport Radio
(the respected Transport Research Laboratory claims that these
people have a significantly worse reaction time than people who
have 80 mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood).
7. Ban drivers who are tired.
8. Ban drivers who are using medication that
effects the central nervous system.
9. Ban drivers from drinking and driving if they
are under 21 years.
I realize that some of these suggestions are
impossible to enforce, but they are in fact the causes of many
hundreds if not thousands of road deaths.
It is a bad law that when introduced, is regarded
as neither fair nor reasonable. It is for this reason that I urge
you to leave the current arrangements in place.
If the desire to save lives needs to be satisfied,
energy and resources could be spent in the following areas:
— Up to 4,000 deaths occur annually in
our hospitals as a result of the Clostridium Difficile superbug.
— Up to 7,000 premature deaths are caused
per year by the harmful trans fats that are present in a wide
range of cheap foods.
— The fact that the NHS spends £7
billion a year on the obesity problem.
— About 1,200 babies are born each year
in England alone, who are addicted to drugs such as heroin. This
figure has almost doubled in the last 10 years.
Thank you for the opportunity to express my
views.
August 2010
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