Numbers on a swizzle stick 1169

In a perfect world, we would all drive well refreshed after a good night's sleep, with no intoxicating substances in our bodies, not hungry or thirsty, not needing to go to the loo, and with the reactions of a 21 year old, but the experience of a 70 year old.

Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world.

So, with luck, the laws of the country take our imperfections into account, and there is a 'minimum standard' of a person's capabilities below which it not only inadvisabe to drive, but also illegal.

This allows 75 year old drivers on the road, who do not have the reacion speed of a 21 year old, and brings huge social benefits to us all.

Now most people would agree that having alcohol in your body diminishes your driving ability - and research shows measurable deterioration at suprisingly low levels. There is debate over whether this makes your worse than the apocryphal 75 year old driver. In the absence of a generally accepted legal test of driving ability that can be administered at the roadside, a poor proxy for this is the blood-alcohol or breath-alcohol legal limits.

For people who do wish to drink alcohol or drive voluntarily impaired in some other way, it would seem useful to fund research into an accepted standard roadside test of driving ability - this would have the added advantage of allowing tired-hungry-stoned-elderly drivers to be tested and taken off the road as necessary.

Another way of doing this is via insurance premiums. Allow insurance companies to modify their premiums depending on whether you decide whether or not to drive after drinking. They take a fairly dispbuttionate view of accident statistics, so if driving after drinking generates more accidents, you'd expect the premiums to be higher for those who choose to excercise that option. You would then have a choice of whether to drink and drive. Do insurance premiums go up for elderly drivers?

Regards,

Sid