Drinking drivers

Press, 22 August 1979, Page 16

Drinking drivers

Sir, —I have been horrified in recent months by the dangerous behaviour of a certain “gang” that has received so little publicity relative to the more readily identifiable gangs that have drawn so much attention from the media and the. public in recent weeks. I refer of course, to the irresponsible collection of drunken drivers who, though hardly constituting a gang in the strictest sense of the word, nevertheless, have committed atrocities much greater in number than any gang such as the Stormtroopers. I do not deny that the latter type of gang

is a problem, but it is time for New Zealanders to sort out their priorities and see social problems in proper perspective. Maybe the reason drinking drivers are so passively accepted is because they are an extension of male-dominated values in our society, whereby a man’s social status is seen in terms of his ability to drink. — Yours, etc., G. P. ANDERSEN. August 19, 1979.