The FishTank

A report published today suggests that the Government should lower the drink-drive limit from its present 80mg blood alcohol to 50mg. The BBC, in an editorial, goes further, suggesting a complete ban – to save confusion. Is their conclusion – that just one death due to drink-driving is too many – really justification for such an attack on civil liberties?

Of course, some of the commentariat don’t see it in this way. From the comfort of their urban existence, they see no reason why anybody should need to drink and drive. After all, that’s what tube trains and black cabs are for. If, however, you live in a rural village, with no trains, where buses are like the yeti during the day and non-existent at night, where even taxis don’t run after 6pm, the choice is between drink-driving and never going out for a drink. In fact, for civilized society it’s the difference between drink-driving and never going out for a meal. Country pubs up and down the country rely on a steady stream of customers who like a meal with some wine and who are sensible with it. If the statistics suggested that every driver who shared a bottle of wine with his spouse was likely to kill someone there’d be no question but that a ban was necessary. But, of course, they show no such thing.

Statistics on driving deaths aren’t actually all that detailed. From what data there is, however, we can see that not only are there now fewer road deaths than at any time since 1923 – and that’s fewer in total, not per capita – but that of the 2,538 or so recorded in 2008, only 430 were caused by people driving over the legal limit. Only this statistic tells us less than we really need to know. For the purposes of justifying a lower limit or a complete ban we would need to know how many of the other 2000 or so deaths were caused by people who’d been drinking but were under the limit and, significantly, how many of the 430 either knew or cared whether they were over the limit. These two pieces of information are critically important because on them hinges the entire justification for a change in the existing regime.

Let’s take the first point first. It would be little more than propaganda to suggest that every road death was caused by alcohol, but we can look at data on weather, sex, road type and time of day/week and draw some conclusions. Firstly, most road deaths are male. This is no surprise: even in our modern, equal society, there are still more miles driven by men than women, particularly on the extra-urban A roads where over half of all deaths occur. In addition, male drivers are more likely to be aggressive and to speed. Even so, the small numbers (1825 in 2008) suggests either that most men are extremely lucky or that the sex is less than universally bad behind the wheel. Deaths are also vastly more common in the 17-25 age band than in any other, suggesting that it is when aggression is coupled with youthful inexperience that it is most likely to make a lethal cocktail.

But is that cocktail alcoholic? Clearly not in all cases – after all, if 643 road deaths are of 17-25 year olds and only 430 road deaths involve drink-driving, it would suggest that no older people were involved in drink-driving deaths. This is unlikely, but if it were true it would suggest drink-drive deaths could be eliminated simply by raising the legal age for alcohol. What’s more likely is that youthful impatience, aggression and inexperience leads to speeding and dodgy overtaking – certainly a common cause for deaths on our local roads.

Looking at the time of day, roughly a third of all road deaths occur during commuting hours. This is hardly surprising, tired or frustrated drivers and busy roads make accidents vastly more likely. Since most people don’t have a liquid breakfast or spend their last hour or so at work getting tanked up, however, it can be assumed that these deaths are unlikely to be alcohol-induced. There are spikes on Sunday lunchtimes and Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, but these will, for the most part, be from the 430 drink-drive deaths already noted. There are also a fair distribution of deaths during both day and night on weekdays. The night ones are bound to involve a number of people who are driving tired or who have poor night vision, the day ones could readily involve some of the 557 pedestrian fatalities, particularly the 156 children under 16, many of whom may have stepped onto busy roads at an inopportune moment. Whilst it isn’t impossible that deaths at these times would involve alcohol, it is unreasonable to assume that they constitute a significant proportion. After all, those who drive drunk at 3am on a Tuesday morning or 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon are unlikely to hold down a job long enough to fund either a car or a drinking habit. Statistically, it is more likely that these accidents are caused by either the darkness or children with poor awareness of traffic. Banning the school run or imposing a curfew would undoubtedly save some of these lives, but only the most hardened anti-car groups would dare argue for either.

So, looking at the statistics overall, the clear suggestion is that whilst drink-drive deaths do occur at obvious drinking hours there is little evidence that the complete death toll involves a great many undiagnosed alcohol-related deaths. The risks of drinking up to the existing limit would seem to be overstated. There are other measures that would significantly reduce the number of road deaths – raising the minimum age for driving, for one – but nobody seems to be proposing these. Clearly, that one life saved isn’t that important.

But what about the second question? What if those 430 drink related deaths only happen because the drivers don’t know they’re over the limit? This is hard to judge statistically, but ask yourself just how credible it is. A man goes into a bar and drinks until it closes. He drives home and has an accident on the way. How likely is it that someone who has consumed perhaps 6-8 pints thinks he is under the limit? Or the two women who demolish a whole bottle of rose wine each before getting into their hatchback and driving off? Would you seriously believe that anyone would consider 750ml of wine to be less than the legal limit? Generally when people exceed the limit enough to be dangerous they do it by a wide margin. We are not talking someone who shares a bottle of wine and has slightly more than half of it, but someone who drinks heavily because they enjoy it and then drives dangerously because they think they’re good at it. The miscalculations of a man under the influence driving a vehicle at speed can be lethal, but it’s the attitude not the alcohol that is the defining factor. Would an absolute ban stop them? Has a ban on driving whilst on a mobile stopped anyone? The sheer likelihood that a person can ignore a law and get away with it means that a complete ban will have little or no effect. Arresting them after they kill someone will make as much difference as arresting them after they kill themselves. And without creating a police state that’s the way it will nearly always turn out.

So, if a complete ban won’t stop those who already exceed the limit and won’t have an appreciable impact on deaths caused by drivers who aren’t exceeding the current limit, what will it achieve? Apart from closing down country pubs and restaurants across the country, massively increasing unemployment and public resentment of the State, pretty much nothing. Labour undoubtedly commissioned this review, as they always did, to tell them what they wanted to hear and to give them an excuse for another erosion of our rights. It remains to be seen whether the coalition have ears for the same, but for a party who has made rolling back unnecessary impositions of the State their calling card it’s hard to see how they could square the findings of this report with that narrative.