Drink drive theory challenged
To say “there is no blood alcohol level at which impairment does not occur” is patent nonsense. Small quantities of alcohol occur naturally in some foods and are produced in the body by certain metabolic processes. People function perfectly normally after consuming small quantities of alcohol, depending on the individual and the amount, and even commercial airline pilots are allowed 20mg/ml.
Dr Bedford’s statistics assume that if a crash victim has any measurable amount of blood alcohol, then this is the cause of the accident, without regard to whether or not it was his fault.
It is particularly wicked to blame pedestrians for being killed if they are standing at a bus stop or walking quite legally and properly along the road when a driver loses control or fails to look where he or she is going but this is typical of the anti-pedestrian official mentality.
Causality in crashes is a complex matter. Normally several factors conspire together and to say which are responsible is largely a matter of opinion, and not something which can be scientifically measured.
Obviously to be noticeably drunk is a serious impairment to driving skills – but to claim that because 30% had even minute levels of alcohol in their blood, then this has to be the cause is as daft as saying that if 60% were listening to the radio then this was the cause of the accident.
The present limit of 80mg/ml is about right. Exaggerating the role of alcohol is iniquitous because it detracts from the real reasons for the vast majority of crashes, such as tiredness, emotional or physiological disturbance, illness, inattentiveness, carelessness and poor judgment, which are ignored because they cannot be measured.
It is also an evasion strategy to avoid taking effective action to reduce accidents which would inevitably inconvenience motorists.
Michael Job
Rossnagrena
Glengarriff
Co Cork
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