Cycling UK Forum

I found this item on the BBC interesting for an aspect it didn't cover in detail.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24281043

The report is about the extent of reoffending among drink-drivers and it makes grim reading. It also includes this:

Provisional figures released on Thursday show that 280 people were killed in drink-drive accidents in 2012, an increase of about 17% compared with 2011. This accounts for 16% of all road deaths in Britain. Overall, deaths were down 8% on 2011, at 1,754

That's a quote from Reported road casualties Great Britain: annual report 2012

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... eport-2012

If we accept that the primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of offending, every road collision represents a bit of a failure. That's probably a harsh judgment but drink-drive crashes are arguably more amenable to prevention by effective enforcement, and when people are killed they are serious by any standard. Breathalyser stats are notoriously open to different interpretations, since most of the published data only record the level of police activity. Whatever confidence people have in official statistics, the total of people killed in fatal road accidents is one of the most accurate (even allowing for things like people surviving for 30 days not being included.) I've not dug out the stats for earlier years so I don't know if this is a blip or part of a trend. (The only computer I have at the moment is so slow researching something like that is a pita.) What concerns me is that this may be an indicator of the general reduction in traffic enforcement.

It is worrying, but just one year. On that linked page is a link to Drinking and driving, provisional 2012 and final 2011, which goes into detail, eg table RAS51001. Fatal and injured numbers have roughly halved since 2000, but have increased slightly in the last 2 years, with the caveat that 2012 numbers are provisional.

Various numbers "suggest that the highest risk of death from driving whilst over the legal limit is to the driver themselves and their passengers, rather than to other road users."

snibgo

Thanks for going to the trouble to dig that out. From your link:-

Since 1979, when detailed reporting began, there has been an almost six-fold reduction in the number killed in drink drive accidents and a similar drop in seriously injured casualties.

Strange that detailed reporting only began over a decade after the introduction of breath testing. Even so, on the face of it, it's an impressive reduction, so let's hope that the recent increase is only a blip. Every one represents the loss of at least one life - I'm not losing sight of that when I refer to a blip.

Yes, every one is a tragedy.

Supporting the "blip" theory: the Background Notes in the document I linked says that for fatalities, final numbers are generally less than provisional ones. For 2011, these were 280 (provisional) reduced to 240 (final). For 2012, the provisional number is 280. So perhaps the final 2012 figure will also reduce to 240.

thirdcrank wrote:

Since 1979, when detailed reporting began, there has been an almost six-fold reduction in the number killed in drink drive accidents and a similar drop in seriously injured casualties.

Strange that detailed reporting only began over a decade after the introduction of breath testing. Even so, on the face of it, it's an impressive reduction, so let's hope that the recent increase is only a blip. Every one represents the loss of at least one life - I'm not losing sight of that when I refer to a blip.

Was it purely breath testing that brought about the reduction in casualties? If so, has the practice of breath testing fallen away (like the abandonment of speed checking)? This could account for the rise in casualties.

Geriatrix wrote:Was it purely breath testing that brought about the reduction in casualties? If so, has the practice of breath testing fallen away (like the abandonment of speed checking)? This could account for the rise in casualties.

It was a combination of publicity, stiff penalties, breath testing, and an increased chance of conviction following introduction of evidential breath testing* and tweaking of laws to eliminate getting off on technicalities.

So why the current increase? My guess is a combination of no major drink drive campaigns and less breath testing and a less visible police presence due to cuts in numbers and diverting police time from traffic to higher priority matters.

* For the last 15 or 20 years drunk drivers who failed the breathalyser test at the scene were arrested then on arrival at the police station tested on a breath machine.

Prior to that drivers who failed the roadside breath test had to supply either blood or urine for a lab test. Urine was two samples within 1 hours. Blood was taken by a doctor who could take typically anything from 30 minutes to 90 minutes to get to the station. This meant arresting officers were off the street longer and borderline cases had a chance to drop below the limit waiting for a doctor. In addition the driver couldn't be charged until a lab report was received which delayed the court case and ban.

In E&W, substantive breath testing machines at police stations were introduced around 30 years ago. It's certainly true that they really streamlined the police station procedure (and saved the police service zillions in doctors' fees for taking blood samples.)

I've never seen any stats showing whether the time saved on individual arrests was used to carry out an increase in breath testing. It seems to have become routine to breath test all the drivers involved after a crash, but that must be set against a substantial number of collisions which the police do not attend. Apart from that, while a positive test after a crash will normally see the driver disqualified, it's too late to prevent that crash (whether injury occurred or not.)

"Accident" stats are affected by all sorts of variables, but it seems to me that what might be called pro-active testing ie under powers to test drivers suspected of drink-driving or committing "a moving traffic offence" has two effects: first, the knowledge that this is happening on any sort of widespread scale is a deterrent against risking it; then, every driver arrested before they've had a crash is one fewer potential crash. That's surely better than reactive testing after an accident has occurred.

My concern in starting this thread was whether the recent rise in drink drive fatal collisions reflected the continuing trend towards less traffic policing. snibgo's link doesn't support that concern.

(FWIW I have a fair bit of experience of breath testing: I worked at Leeds Bridewell when it was one of the busiest police stations in the country for breathalyser arrests. So busy, that it was used as one of the sites for field testing the different types of substantive machine. I was also one of the first in the land to be trained to use the substantive machines. It was a three day course in those far off days. That's all in addition to roadside breath tests I've administered. )

10cc of alcohol is one unit. So a 175cc glass of 14% wine puts you over the limit. Many people are totally ignorant about this. If you point it out you often get abuse. What is needed is education which would take a vast swathe of drunk drivers off the road just leaving the ones who don't care. They should be dealt with more severely with long bans. As with most motoring offences the law is far too soft.

Al

What I'm trying to get at is the principle that prevention is better than cure, or in this case, better than detection and punishment. On the prevention theme, here have been all manner of public education projects aimed at preventing drink-driving and it's open to debate how much they have worked. I'll suggest they need reinforcing with effective policing.

In theory, prevention being better than detection is at the heart of British policing. Unless something has changed, almost the first thing every new recruit sees at the police training centre is the time-honoured quote from the original instructions to the Metropolitan police beginning "The primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime, the next that of detection ..." (I intentionally reworded that to "prevention of offences" further up and I was a bit surprised nobody from a similar background to mine corrected me.) Anyway, the most detailed and scrupulous investigation after a crash has occurred is IMO a poor second best in comparison with preventing it. I said "in theory" because the all the kudos is in detective work.

As with so much else, I must have posted before that in the early days of the breathalyser, when there was a lot of opposition to breath testing, including among plenty of older-end police officers, I saw a doctor on the telly saying that a police officer using a breathalyser was a very effective public health inspector and that influenced my thinking ever since and it's what triggered my concerns here.

al_yrpal wrote:10cc of alcohol is one unit. So a 175cc glass of 14% wine puts you over the limit. Many people are totally ignorant about this. If you point it out you often get abuse. What is needed is education which would take a vast swathe of drunk drivers off the road just leaving the ones who don't care. They should be dealt with more severely with long bans. As with most motoring offences the law is far too soft.

Al

Depends on body weight and metabolism. Your glass of wine is 2.74 units - that might put some people over the limit, but not others.

I agree.
The limit is the limit, but reaching it varies with metabolism etc.

Thereby is the problem.
Zero could work, but I doubt there's be much support for it.

You couldn't have a skinful on a Saturday night/Sunday morning and be confident you had zero on Monday morning.

thirdcrank wrote:"Accident" stats are affected by all sorts of variables, but it seems to me that what might be called pro-active testing ie under powers to test drivers suspected of drink-driving or committing "a moving traffic offence" has two effects: first, the knowledge that this is happening on any sort of widespread scale is a deterrent against risking it; then, every driver arrested before they've had a crash is one fewer potential crash. That's surely better than reactive testing after an accident has occurred.

I'm convinced that this is true, or at least I haven't seen any study that shows that this isn't true.

You may correct me but I think that alcohol is the only human causal factor of crashes that we reliably measure. The evidence for other causal aspects like speed or lack of attention are ephemeral and can only be inferred. Measuring is a way of quantifying the problem and if the measurement is going up in a way that is statistically significant, then it appears that something has changed in the way we are managing the problem.

For several decades, the strongly held view of the Home Office seems to have been that uniformed police patrols make no difference to levels of offending. I think it's based on doubtful research but that's what they think. The realisation that a large part of the general public didn't agree with them led to things like the introduction of PCSO's, and all uniformed police wearing hi-viz togs. The emphasis now is on public reassurance. If people feel safe they are safe.

Now, if you wanted to demonstrate how the presence of visible police altered the way people behave, a liveried police car would be as good as anything but specialist traffic patrols (white or sometimes flo-yellow tops to caps) have been reduced as has the amount of time spent by non-specialist uniform officers dealing with traffic offences. The people to whom this matters are vulnerable road users.

The main point about blood/alcohol offences is that there's no waggle room: over the limit = offence. The legal limit can be changed - or not - as a matter of policy but the principle remains the same. (There are rules to be followed before specimens can be required but they are not onerous.)

thirdcrank wrote:The main point about blood/alcohol offences is that there's no waggle room: over the limit = offence.

Are there any other offences treated like that?

Are all other offences treated as rigidly?
Somehow I doubt it.

Mick F wrote: ... Are there any other offences treated like that?

Are all other offences treated as rigidly?
Somehow I doubt it.

Remember that driving over the permitted limit is a summary offence ie it's triable only in a magistrates' court in E&W (I don't know about Scotland.) There are plenty of summary offences which are so-called absolute offences. In terms of driving offences, what I've called waggle room is the exception rather than the rule: careless/ inconsiderate / dangerous driving and leaving a vehicle in a dangerous position / causing an unnecessary obstruction are the only relatively common ones with a subjective element that immediately come to mind. I'm sure there are others.

The reason I drew attention to this on this thread in relation to the breathalyser was that we looked to be edging towards discussing whether some people are better able to hold their drink better than others. Historically, breath testing moved us in a very short time from defendants who would have made a good drunk and incapable had they not been driving a car, being found not guilty because there was reasonable doubt as to whether their driving was impaired, to a situation where the evidence was generally completely straightforward. Over the limit = guilty.

Of course, the mandatory 12 mos driving ban is very rigid.