Silk
It isn't the source of *all* road safety ills, but if you look at the statistics then driving whilst intoxicated sticks out like a sore thumb as a cause of needless KSI collisions and single vehicle incidents (many of the latter go unreported). We have a sharp bend just outside the village that often catches them out. See for example:
Drinking & driving 1596David Knowles If you had two pints of "Stella" beer, which seems to be 5.2% alcohol by volume...
Drink drivers are ever so confident that these limits do not apply to them. But do you really want to share the road with someone whose coordination is shot to pieces? Unsteady on their feet and stamps on the accelerator when they are aiming for the brake? Or makes full use of the *entire* width of the road whilst staying well inside the speed limit? Or gets onto a D2AP or roundabout in the contra-flow direction? etc etc.
I agree driving without insurance is not taken seriously enough. And I have lost count of the number of people I see driving round oblivious to their surroundings with a mobile phone clamped to one ear.
For the latter offence I reckon doubling the penalties in the event of a collision ought to work pretty well.
I will drink one pint in the UK and then switch to soft drinks.
Regards, Martin Brown
