Not completely don't worry.

I was having a discussion with a friend, and I proposed that you should not be able to drink anything alcoholic and drive. The main reason being that the limit is based on blood alcohol levels not on units. This means it will vary hugely from person to person without any way of measuring without your very own breath tester. So because of this, if you can't know before you drink you shouldn't be allowed any.

???

The issue however then becomes "how long after drinking do you have to wait until you can drive".

Another problem faced, is that, from what I've read, a fair few drink drive incidents are premeditated, aka, people on a night out, and then they go for a drive. But I'm not sure if it should be out lawed, everyone's tolerances towards alcohol are different. Don't really know where I'm going with this, but hey, there's my input, one thing I do know for certain, is that if alcohol was 'created' now, it certainly wouldn't be legal....

Trouble is, you can't legislate against stupidity. If you ban something, people will still do it. Prohibition in the USA just pushed drinking underground - people still drank, but it went from respectable establishments to shady corners. Banning people from drinking at all and then driving will stop the reasonably sensible people, but the real idiots who can't be taught will still do it.

You know the people I'm talking about - the people who need to be told that the contents of their coffee cup may be hot...

I have no problem with that. Eventually that group will 'select' themselves out of having a licence and a car (and possibly life) and then they can't drive anyway. I'm very much in favour of punishing stupidity frankly.

I don't think this is a real prohibition issue - people will still be able to drink as much as they like. The difference is actually to how you behave the next day, not how you behave on the night.

I'm all for zero tolerance myself. That was always the rule I stuck when I did drink alcohol, I just didn't drink anyway when I was driving. The 'next morning' thing is trickier I admit but at least this way everyone knows where they stand, it's still the person's responsibility and people have an easy rule of thumb - you know if you have a night out you'll have to get the train/bus/taxi to work the next morning. As oppose to now when people have to start thinking about how many units they've drunk, how many units you get rid of per hour and 'does it still work the same when you're asleep?' and 'oh sod it I'll be OK' even when they're actually over the limit still.

Jon

Well this is not a question that can be answered without more information.

What I want to know is how many deaths a year in the UK are caused by having a small amount of alcohol (1 unit?) in the blood.

If the answer is high then ban drinking and driving. If nearly 0 then we are fine as we are.

The point I was trying to get at was because you can't measure your blood level it's too hit and miss. So ban it or make better guidelines, like 1 unit. But then you have the problem of measuring it. You don't really know if you are over the limit unless you have a breathelizer, so technically you may be over the limit.

NO. Police would abuse it to boost numbers. Just the smallest of smallest traces would be punished to make the cops look good.
Even if you had one tenth of the current legal limit in your blood you could be banned for a year. That's just silly. And don't think police would use common sense, because they've shown in other cases (people taking photo's in public) that they don't.

+1

Sod off and fight real crime. The current limit is fine.

I often get caught in the 'should I drive this morning' situation.

I've never been pulled over, but I may have been over the limit a couple of times. Of course, I have no way of knowing though. So it's just guess work.

It's all a bit academic here in NI at least - the amount of drivers who were banned for life and still only get fined when they're caught drunk behind the wheel again is ridiculous

Since I've stopped drinking, I no longer have to face this issue.

Personally, I didn't and still don't have a problem with a two-unit maximum. As stated above, most people are sensible enough to know when and when not to drive, including the morning after. Some of my close mates who drink definitely won't drive immediately, and avoid driving the following morning. If they know they have to go somewhere, especially if it's early, they tend to limit their drinking a lot more.

At the risk of sounding like me again - education, not legislation ftw.

Give the 5-0 an inch and they'll take the country.

Thing is, whilst alcohol can impair your judgement and reactions, so can a headache, being a bit stressed out, being one those "the coffee is hot" people etc...so where does it stop?

I'm all for zero tolerance.

As others have said, when I was going on a night out, I'd either drive OR drink. Same with the next day, if I was still drinking late into the night, I wouldn't drive the next day - I'd either stay home, go on foot or take public transport.

It really isn't difficult.

The biggest problem here are the Russian-Germans, they don't consider anything under Vodka to be alcohol, so drinking beer doesn't count as alcohol... There have been a lot of big accidents caused by RGs recently, the last one I saw reported was 5 late teens, early 20s in an Audi A3, the driver had a blood alcohol count of something like 3.5(!) and wrapped the A3 around a tree, literally (he hit the tree going sideways and hit the tree just behind the door post) doing about 180...