Change of tune on drink-drive ceiling

IN his letter headlined ‘Reducing legal drink limit will save countless lives’ (August 20), Dr Declan Bedford, replying to my criticism of his ‘research’ (August 18) is changing his tune.

He now says “no amount of alcohol improves your driving.”

True – but quite a different thing from his previous “there is no blood alcohol level at which impairment does not occur”. This contradicts what he is now saying ... that “levels above 20mg/100ml impair your driving”.

The fact that other EU countries are lowering the limit proves nothing. Politicians habitually pass stupid, pointless and even counterproductive laws to create the impression they are doing something. Since Dr Bedford does not respond to my point in relation to his claim that if a crash victim has “any measure of blood alcohol”, then alcohol has to be the cause of the crash, even if the driver was not at fault, I can only assume he does not understand the proper use of statistics.

The 40 or so people who are killed in Britain each year by motorists while walking on the footpath are clearly innocent. For him and the RSA to claim that if they have been drinking they are at fault is not only absurd, it is wicked.

How can he expect people to leave their cars at home and walk to the pub when they know that if they are run down they will be considered responsible?

The road transport system is extremely dangerous and not much more can be done other than to phase out the casual use of private vehicles and spend the money saved on railways, trams, cycle lanes and footpaths.

Instead, the ship of fools in government prefer spin to action as we drift helplessly towards the Scylla of global warming and Chabryis of peak oil.

Michael Job

Glengarriff

Co Cork