Intoxicated Drivers Use Of Blood Tests Queried

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30278, 2 November 1963, Page 10

Intoxicated Drivers Use Of Blood Tests Queried

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, November 1. Blood tests for drivers, as advocated by a committee of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association, would do little to solve the problem \ of those who drink and drive, a pathologist, a lawyer and an analytical chemist claimed in Auckland today.

The tests were fallible, they said, especially if not carried out with the greatest of care and skill.

In their opinion, the tests should be used, if at all, merely as corroboration of other clinical evidence, and not a$ the sole arbiter of whether a person was fit to drive or not. A definition of unfitness to drive based solely on the level of alcohol in the blood would make for very easy law, said the pathologist, who, with the others, asked that

his name not be published, for professional reasons. "But I don't think for a moment it would be just for fair law,” he said. Blood samples, taken by a doctor perhaps an hour or two after an accident, could not by themselves, tell anything about the sobriety of a driver at the time of the accident, the lawyer said. The levels proposed by the B.M.A. committee were based on statistical evidence, and were essentially averages. But the Courts were concerned with individuals, not statistical averages, and each case must be considered on its individual merits. “The committee has said that a blood alcohol level in excess of 0.15 per cent cannot be accepted in any circumstances as consistent with fitness to drive a vehicle with safety,” said the chemist But overseas, people with

blood levels as high as 0.4 per cent—approaching lethal levels—had been diagnosed by doctors as sober, using ordinary clinical tests of the type applied in police stations. “As everybody knows, and as has been shown time and again in scientific trials, there is a very great individual variation in reaction to alcohol,” said the lawyer.

“Some people may be unfit to drive when their blood alcohol level is below the 0.05 per cent set by the B.M.A. as the highest that could be accepted in a driver that is entirely consistent with the safety of other road users. “Others may still appear sober when their blood levels are above 0.15 per cent, the level the B.M.A. says cannot be accepted in any circumstances as consistent with fitness to drive a vehicle with safety. “Chemical tests of this sort can be useful. But only as part of the whole body of evidence against a person, and not as the sole evidence. They are useful for corroborating other tests, but there should be no statutory imposition as to whether a given percentage in a blood test means a person is guilty or not”