DRINK AND DRIVING Tests Will Lessen Danger

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31974, 29 April 1969, Page 20

DRINK AND DRIVING Tests Will Lessen Danger

The introduction of breath-tests and bloodtests for alcohol is a means of keeping the driver who is affected by liquor out of his ear and thereby removing a danger from New Zealand roads, says the Ministry of Transport. Year by year statistical show a steady increase In convictions for driving, attempting to drive, or in charge of a motor vehicle while under the influence of drink or drugs. In 1968 there were 288 offences resulting in convictions. by 1968 these had risen to 464 convictions. The motorist is not the only drinker who can cause l accidents. Eighty accidents! reported In 1966 wre attri-i buted to pedestrians who! were intoxicated. Alcohol, I however, played its part in 435 accidents in which the! driver, or cyclist, was found] to be intoxicated. Altogether 88 people died! and 760 were injured as al result of accidents clearly] attributable to intoxication. { It is difficult to say how many accidents occurred in which alcohol was a secondary factor. The largest primary accident causes are failure to give way. inattention. excessive speed and failure to keep left

fl If it were possible to j analyse these accidents more closely, it could well be found 1 that the reason one driver >1 failed to give way. or was • i inattentive, was because his I reactions and judgment had 1 j been hazed by alcohol, ' although be was not intoxiI ! cated , This is why experts In I different fields place a much I higher figure on the number <of accidents in which '{alcohol is a factor. In 1968 the report of the . Road Safety Committee > reviewed the situation in . New Zealand. Figures given as the official < statistics for 1967 showed that of 11,949 fatal and injury accidents investigated by the police 1752 or 14 per cent involved a driver who was to be under the influence of liquor. Where drivers were admitted te hospital medical evi--1 dence placed before the eom{mittee indicated that the percentage of cases where idriving ability was significantly impaired by alcohol was i much higher than 14 per cent and several experts placed the figure at more than 40 per {cent Many Tests Overwhelming evidence that I alcohol makes drivers overconfident and inattentive has: been provided by tests in i many countries. Alcohol has been found to make steering and other!

I movements more erratic and {less controlled, it slows re- : actions, and reduces the { speed with which a driver makes judgments. A London University experiment conducted by Professor Drew, tested 40 drivers on the Miles motordriving trainer before and after they had taken different amounts of alcohol. The amounts were increased by stages. Most drivers were affected by even small concentrations of alcohol in their blood. As the concentration rose, the standard of performance became worse. With a blood alcohol concentration of about 80mg. per 100 ml. the deterioration amounted to about 12 per cent. Results of controlled laboratory tests of this kind have been confirmed by experiments using experienced drivers in actual driving situations In one such test Professor Cohen, of Manchester University, put a group of bus drivers through a special test. Some bad different amounts of alcohol in the blood, some had none at all. Judgment Spoiled The test consisted of driving buses through narrow gaps. Drivers also bad to decide which of the gaps were too narrow for the buses to pass through. Results clearly indicated that alcohol spoils judgment

as well as skill. After alcohol, the performance of these highly skilled drivers worsened. Some of them even attempted to drive their buses through openings narrower than the buses. Others Harder Many drivers may think severe the new law which comes into effect tn New Zealand shortly making it an offence to drive or attempt to drive with a blood alcohol level in excess of 100 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of a driver's blood. But it is harder in other countries. Bulgaria and the German Democratic Republic have a fixed blood alcohol limit set at 30mg. per 100 ml. The Bulgarians imprison drivers who have been drinking and who cause death on the road for a minimum of 10 years. Poland, Norway and Sweden have a fixed limit of 50mg. per 100 ml. In October. 1967, Britain launched the Road Safety Act which set the limit at 80mg. per 100 ml. This level is also shared by Switzerland and Austria. In the first full year after the new law was introduced in Austria in 1960, accidents involving drink fell more than 25 per cent.