The Fourth Deterrent To The Drinking Driver

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31053, 7 May 1966, Page 14

The Fourth Deterrent To The Drinking Driver

Social pressure, the fear of detection, and awareness of an increased risk of accident are regarded as the three principal deterrents to motorists driving or attempting to drive after drinking alcohol. In New Zealand and elsewhere they have proved inadequate. Earlier this year the British Minister of Transport (Mrs Castle) introduced in the Commons a Road Safety Bill which sets a limit to the proportion of alcohol a driver may have in his blood without committing an offence. It does not replace offences which are determined by the ability of the motorist to drive. The prescribed limit is 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood. As a driver’s ability may be seriously impaired by a lower alcohol content in the blood, he might be charged instead with driving while his ability is impaired by drink or drugs. The fixing of this limit, without specific regard for the peculiar effects of alcohol on individuals, is akin to a speed limit which may not be perfectly attuned to all the times and places in which it is applied. A speed limit does not preclude the possibility of a charge of dangerous driving at a milch slower speed. Having fixed this limit according to the advice of medical experts, the bill authorises random checks bv policemen equipped with breath-testing equipment. The police already have power to stop any vehicle on a road or in a public place. The breath test is a preliminary test to indicate whether the proportion of alcohol in a driver’s blood exceeds the prescribed limit. This “ snot check ” is the fourth deterrent to driving after drinking.

The bill proposes a fine of £5O for a motorist convicted of failing to stop or refusing without reasonable excuse to undertake the test. If *he mechanical breath test indicates an excessive alcohol level, or if a driver refuses the test but is suspected of having alcohol in his body, he may be arrested and required to provide a blood or urine sample for exact laboratory testing. The laboratory test —not the preliminary deterrent breath test—is the basis of a prosecution. The police may also require breath and blood tests of motorists arrested on charges of driving when their ability is impaired through drink. Refusal to supply a blood or urine specimen makes a person liable to the same punishment as if he had been convicted on a charge of driving or attempting to drive with an alcohol level above the prescribed limit. Summary conviction on this charge makes him liable to imprisonment up to four months, or a fine of up to £lOO, or both.

An established principle of common law is breached by the provision that a person who refuses to supply evidence that may be used against him should automatically be held guilty of the offence with which he is likely to be charged. In practice, this principle is more likely to protect the guilty than penalise the innocent: and it must be remembered that the motorist is not an ordinary man. The random checks proposed in the bill can hardly be objected to, even though they may be inconvenient—just as random checks on warrants of fitness or axle loads may be inconvenient. The alcohol proportion limit may be arbitrary, but not more arbitrary than a speed limit, nor less sensible. The penalties for refusing tests may be harsh: but without them the innovation would be worthless, and no innocent person need reject the tests. Drunken driving should not be a reckless game in which motorists, but not their victims, can shelter behind nice principles of law. Indeed, the motorist who is innocent of an offence under this bill would know that reliable tests would confirm his innocence without recourse to varying judgments of his driving ability by policemen, doctors, or magistrates. The bill, not yet law in Britain, pronoses an innovation which New Zealand shou'd seriously consider as a new deterrent to the drinking driver.