Police Surgeon States Case For Blood Alcohol Testing

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31115, 19 July 1966, Page 23

Police Surgeon States Case For Blood Alcohol Testing

A statutory level of alcohol in the blood could well be compared with the 30 m.p.h. speed restrictions which everyone accepts in the interests of public safety, and which in general prove satisfactory, says Dr. W. Sealy Wood, the senior police surgeon at Auckland, in an article printed in “Woman’s Viewpoint,” the official journal of the National Council of Women.

Dr. Wood says that In some circumstances the 30 m.p.h. figure is far too liberal; in many other circumstances, it is unnecessarily restrictive. “From time to time,” he says, “we have all driven in the streets at 40 plus without a whisper of danger: but if we are caught by a radar trap we accept it, knowing full well that the restriction is ultimately for our collective good. “Surely with the same reasoning we should be prepared to accept a similar

restriction on drinking anddriving.” Dr. Wood says that various studies have given the rate at which alcohol contributes to road accidents as anything from 15 to 50 per cent, with a greater involvement of alcohol in the more serious and the fatal accidents. Accidents and Drink “But from my reading and from my personal observations as a public hospital surgeon, I am inclined to think the something like one third of the [victims of] road traffic accidents admitted to hospital are affected by alcohol.” He says he is sure that a study of blood alcohol levels at the time of admission of all traffic accident cases into hospital would be most revealing “In 1964,” he says, “the police prosecuted 977 drivers in New Zealand for driving ‘under the influence,’ 114 or these being in Auckland. If my guess is right, that approximately 30 per cent of road traffic accident hospital admissions show alcohol effects, then about three and a half times as many drinking drivers get into hospital as get into court.” Road traffic accidents and alcohol are a significant cause of injury and death in New Zealand, and “a disease process of this magnitude surely deserves some preventive treatment.” Dr. Wood says examination by a police doctor is no real test of how a driver would perfrom behind the wheel. “And in any event,” he says, “he wouldn’t be up for examination if he failed a practical driving test shortly beforehand. “This is where ordinary clinical testing shows its unreliability. The reaction in the consulting room is not the reaction on the road. Carefully controlled scientific tests have established clearly that driving, as opposed to social behaviour, deteriorates with quite small doses of alcohol.” The Best Test Dr. Wood says that he finds even after 15 years’ experience, that it is a most difficult thing for a doctor to say to what degree a suspect is affected by alcohol. He says it is not quite a fair problem to put on to a doctor. “After all,” he says, “the best test of driving surely is to drive, and the series of tests we perform at the examination falls far short of this. Why should an ability to read or to stand up or to write or to use a telephone directory have any realistic bearing on the ability to drive? “The accused would not be a suspect unless his driving had already been faulty enough to draw attention to himself, or to cause a complaint to be made, or to precipitate an accident. “If the doctor says alcohol is the responsible agent, the degree of intoxication at the time of driving should be gauged from the extent of the aberrations observed by on-the-spot witnesses. “At least that’s my contention. I see many cases where I have to return a favourable report on the man’s capabilities, in spite of unequivocable signs of alcohol, because under to conditions of the examination which are favourable for concentration, he can pull himself together sufficiently to do my tests well. But surely it must have been the alcohol which led to the driving misdemeanour; yet he can be convicted of only a relatively minor traffic charge unless the doctor returns an adverse report.” “With Certainty” Dr. Wood says a blood test for alcohol would also unearth the agent responsible for erratic driving behaviour with certainty, and prove the worth of alternative diagnoses suggested in Court—such as drugs, carbon monoxide, diabetes and insulin. He says that acceptance of an analyst's estimation of the alcohol content of the blood would resolve the doctor’s problems. He concedes that there are certain sources of error in the biochemical test, but says a safeguard can be provided by preserving enough of the sample to allow retesting by an independent laboratory if the question of doubt is seriously raised in court.

Dr. Wood proposes for discussion at the next National Council of Women’s conference: “that It should be made a statutory offence to drive a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level of 100 milligrams per 100 millilitres or higher.” (Undoubtedly he is referring to the driver’s blood and not the vehicle’s). “The offence could of course be aggravated by openly dangerous driving,” says Dr. Wood, “but the essence of the act would be that the blood analysis alone would be sufficient to determine that an offence had been committed. Scandinavian Practice

“In experimental circumstances, this level could be reached within 30 to 60 minutes by the consumption of approximately 2+ pints of beer, of 4)oz of whisky at a minimum. In social drinking, with the taking of food, 6oz of whisky, that is to say nine nips or more, might be needed; 3j pints of beer, or 2 pints of special strong beer, might be required to produce this figure in the bloodstream.”

Dr. Wood says that in Scandinavia the blood test is recognised as sufficient in itself to procure a conviction, and punishment is severe. In

Sweden a blood-alcohol figure of 50 milligrams per 100 millilitres brings a fine, while a level of 150 milligrams earns a gaol sentence of two months. He says most drivers convicted in New Zealand would have a blood alcohol figure in excess of 200 mgm./lOOmls. In Norway, he says, 50 milligrams is again the critical figure and a refusal to provide a sample brings cancellation of the driving licence for two years. Dr. Wood says the Scandinavian campaign to remove the drinking driver from the roads has made a major reduction in the contribution of alcohol to road traffic accidents, and has induced a change of attitude on the part of the population. The drinking driver is to some degree a social outcast

“If the problem is to be met” he says, “and I think a problem exists, then it seems to me that nothing less than measures of this sort will ever meet it; and these are unlikely to be instituted unless there is a Change in public opinion in New Zealand. “It has been said that the test of a eure for a diseased state is not whether it is pleasant for the sufferer, but whether it produces the result”