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Although I don’t drink, I quite often visit our ‘local’, for company and a crossword with old friends. Last night I overhead one of the regulars being congratulated for getting ‘..a right result’. Apparently he had been stopped earlier in the day for some minor traffic infringement and the copper concerned chose, for whatever reason, not to breathalise him: perhaps because it was still daylight. Had he done so, he would have removed another drunk driver from the roads, as the man in question, by his own admission, was ‘…well over the limit’. But despite his close shave, the same man left the pub last night even more over the limit, got in his car and drove home. As far as I am aware, he made it home in one piece, again undetected. Frankly, I wouldn’t have cared if he had driven into a tree and hurt himself, or, better still, had been captured and made to pay the price. Good riddance, I would say. But what really hacks me off is the fact that someone else, maybe more than one ‘someone else’, might have had to pay a different kind of price for his extraordinary selfishness. “What about a cab, Billy?’ one of his friends suggested. “I’m a better driver when I’m pissed than they are when they’re sober,” he reassured the bar at large, and off he went. Meanwhile the landlord turned a blind eye. Maybe the time has come to enforce a ‘Duty of Care’ responsibility on publicans, possibly under Section 89 of the Road Traffic Act, which I recall has something to do with aiding and abetting reckless or dangerous driving. Or maybe there should be an anonymous whistle-blowing telephone number, along the lines of Crimestoppers, which would enable a few drunk drivers to be ‘grassed up’ before they’d even attempted to drive home. Or a reception committee in an unmarked car could be deployed at random: maybe that could be another job for community support officers. In the meantime, why not ensure that anyone who is arrested at the roadside for being ‘over the limit’ immediately forfeits their car? No arguments, impounded, sold, proceeds to support the local air ambulance. If uninsured drivers can have their cars impounded, sold or crushed, why not drunk drivers? I for one would consider that ‘a right result’.
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Apparently, the Dutch Police enforce similarly robust sanctions against speeders. I understand that serious offenders have their vehicles taken from them - on a permanent basis.
Is this a myth or can anyone else back this up?
autonut | 21 Dec 06 - 1:46