MOTORISTS AND DRINK.

Evening Star, Issue 19002, 25 July 1925, Page 10

MOTORISTS AND DRINK.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Recently a constable giving evidence was reported as saying; “ The man’s breath smelt strongly of alcohol. There was a partly-filled bottle of spirits in his pocket, but he was perfectly sober.” Again, a man giving evidence in a motor .smash, said: ‘‘ I had two long beers, but was quite sober.” In both these cases (quite innocently, no doubt) these men were staling what is a physical impossibility—that is, that anyone can take the smallest quantity of alcohol and yet be quite sober. There is an old saying; “If it takes five glasses of beer to make a man drunk, then he is onefifth drunk on one glass,” but it expresses an up-to-date demonstrated fact. Up-to-date investigation at the hands of medical research reveals the fact that “a man who takes one teaspoonful of alcohol passes from the state of being perfectly sober.” His normal condition is affected and his faculties and judgment impaired. Now, as a pint of good beer contains two dessertspoonfuls of alcohol, it can be realised how easily and quickly (and quite unnoticed by the individual himself) a man becomes detrimentally affected by alcohol. To-day motor traffic has so largely’increased that any man who takes two beers, or their equivalent of alcohol, becomes a menace, not alone to those with him in the car, but to all other traffic on the road. For this reason it is imperatively necessary that everyone should know the effects of the smallest quantity of alcohol on the accuracy and quickness of sight and judgment. A man is not normal—i.e., perfectly sober—after one teaspoonful of, alcohol. Between that and when he is perceptibly under the influence of drink there may be many stages; but in all of them a man is not sober, and is more or less unfitted to drive a motor car.

One is amazed at the ignorance of people generally to the ex'il and upsetting effects of the smallest quantities of alcohol, but more amazed still when magistrates let drunken motorists off with a fine, because they did not happen to injure or kill anyone, whereas the fact is that in such cases they have been positive dangers and a menace to life and property all along the road. The only way that the rights and liberties of the community can he protected is by gaoling every intoxicated (not only drunken) motorist, and this is .what the law provides for.— l am, etc., Citizen. July 24.