THE PRESS MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1978. Tougher rules on the roads

Press, 4 December 1978, Page 16

THE PRESS MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1978. Tougher rules on the roads

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of New Zealanders broke the law on Friday and Saturday night. Many would not have realised they were offending; others were prepared to take the chance that they would not be caught Only a few dozen of them would have been apprehended up and down the country. The new laws on drinking and driving, which came into force on Friday, make it likely that most convivial week-end drinkers are going to exceed the permissable alcohol level for people who drive motor vehicles. The amount which can be drunk before a person’s bloodaicohol level reaches the point where the law 7 says someone is unfit to drive will vary from person to person. But the permissable level has been lowered from 100 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres cf blood to 80 milligrams. Experiments show' that, on average, this level will be reached after drinking five modest beers, or five of New Zealand’s notoriously small nips of spirits.

The new laws also make it more likely that offenders will be caught. While the grounds for testing a motorist suspected of a drinking and driving offence still fall short of random breath testing, the grounds for requiring a test are wide enough to cover almost all situations where an offence is likely. A suspicion that a driver has “recently” consumed drink, or a suspicion that a driver has “recently” committed any other traffic offence is enough. The driver of any vehicle involved in an accident, or any person in a car involved in an accident (where there is uncertainty about who was driving), can also be tested. It may well be that the courts will be required to establish the meaning of “recently” and of some other details of the new law’. As it stands, a traffic officer would appear, for instance, to be within his rights if he tested every driver leaving a hotel car park or a social occasion where liquor was available.

On November 1 tougher penalties

for driving offences involving alcohol came into force. The fine for a bloodalcohol offence, for instance, has been increased nearly four times to a maximum of 81500. Convicted persons who lose their driving licences as part of their penalty now have less prospect of receiving a limited licence for the period of their disqualification.

And as new testing _ equipment becomes available a new’ offence of exceeding a permissible limit of breath alcohol will come into operation. Under this system the evidence of a refined breath test will be sufficient to establish an offence unless the driver concerned insists on a blood test as well. The new procedure ought to make testing simpler and quicker for traffic officers—and for suspected offenders—when a driver is stopped It remains to be seen how the system will work on the roadside and in the courts.

All these new regulations—a lower level of blood-alcohol, more reliable testing of breath alcohol, tougher penalties, and wider grounds for requiring tests from drivers—add up to a tough package at the beginning of the festive (and drinking) season. The new regulations ought to have the support of the community which has indicated its disgust with drivers who drink to excess, even though alcohol is by no means the only cause of road accidents. The new regulations will make it easier to detect offenders and to secure convictions against them. That should not be the end of the matter.

The object of the law is to deter from driving those people most likely to cause accidents, and to educate the community further not to mix driving and drinking, or to regard it as acceptable behaviour in others. Beyond that, the object must be to make the roads safer for everyone. The success of the new’ laws will be measured less by an increase in the number of convictions than by a decline in the number of traffic accidents.