Novel drink-drive deterrent idea

Press, 2 May 1981, Page 7

Novel drink-drive deterrent idea

NZPA Washington Strict ‘'Scandinavian-type" drink-driving laws with heavy fines and mandatory jail sentences do not cut alcohol-related road accidents in the long term, according to an international survey published in Washington. The survey, based on a study of drink-driving laws in 14 nations, including New Zealand, shows that “'none have had a long-term effect in reducing the number of people killed in alcohol-re-lated crashes.” The introduction of strict laws, accompanied by drinkdriving ‘ blitzes,” do reduce serious casualties during the main drinking hours in the short term, according to the survey. But they soon lose their deterrent pow’ers because drivers quickly learn that the actual likelihood of being arrested and punished is very slight. Only the certainty of apprehension and swift, severe, punishment will have any long term affect, according to H. Lawrence Ross, of the University of New York, Buffalo, who did the survey for the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Ross suggests a novel approach to combat the problem by making drink-driving

a civil, not a criminal, offence for first offenders, with punishment being awarded swiftly by a civil agency, instead of the courts. "By avoiding the prolonged process of arrest and criminal conviction, the administrative approach would serve to manipulate the important factors of certainty and speed in dispatching alcoholimpaired driving cases, instead of making punishment more severe,” Mr Ross wrote. "The mere retraction of the driver’s licence for a few weeks might be a noticeable and presumably effective punishment in an automo-bile-dependent society, if drivers perceive that their chances of being caught are high and that the penalty is mandatory.” He said only repeat offenders and drivers in crashes involving injuries would be subject to criminal charges. "The purpose of this approach would not be to excuse the alcohol-impaired driver from possible severe penalty but to ensure that a high proportion of such drivers always receive a penalty." Mr Ross said the only alternative was maintaining anti-alCohol- "blitz” projects permanently, including frequent police roadblocks at.

which all drivers arc tested for alcohol. But he noted: "The huge political and economic costs of an enforcement programme of this magnitude could be prohibitive.” Mr Hoss studied the drinkdriving laws in Norway, Sweden. Britain, New Zealand. Australia. Canada, the Netherlands. France. Austria, Czechoslovakia, West Germany. Finland. Denmark, and the United States. "In country after country the long-run future seems bleak.” he said. ‘‘Even the most successful of deterrent interventions appears in the course of a few years to have lost its entire beneficial effect. “Crashes and casualties approached prior trends within a few months, or at most, a few years of the reform.” The reason, he suggested, was the discrepancy between the formal provisions of the law and the “actual unlikelihood of apprehension and conviction.” He cited studies showing, that a driver would have to commit from 200 to 2000 drink-driving violations to be caught. “And after apprehension there would still be only a 50-50 chance of the driver’s experiencing anything more than a mild punishment such as a small fine.” Most efforts to modify laws aimed at drunk drivers had centred on increasing the severity of legal punishment without changing the certainty of such punishment, he said.