Drink driving & country pubs.

[David P]

Where I live most people do a little bit of drink driving. Thing is, on the way home, there is nothing to hit so it sort of doesn't matter.

My rule is that if I am going to have a couple of pints, take the car with the comfiest airbags. That way I can have a bit of a kip before I need to get a farmer to pull me out of the hedge.

It's two miles of tight, Devon, country lanes from door to door and in the middle is a valley with 1:4 hills. One going down and one going up. Two pints and it doesn't present any problems. 3 pints and you are asking for it. 4 pints and you'll be through the hedge.

We don't have police 'round here so it is self punishing. If you we're pulled out of a hedge then they would be talking about it for the next 30 years. Points come off after how many? That alone stops you.

Finally, the wife and I share the driving. I drive there and she drives back! It saves all this political conformist nonsense.

 

[PanzerMcGrory]

:

1. Have a decent breakfast. Don't stint on the bacon, you won't get the flu . breakfast can be either a full english (if there is a woman around to cook it) or a series of bacon rolls (if its you and the lads).
.

Dont you mean a full scottish i prefer ours to fried bread, tomatoes etc

 

[DAVE HULL KR]

If im driving i always drink shandy or coke.

 

[Rappey69]

We use to enjoy visiting country pubs for drinks. this does not happen anymore as no one wants to "not drink" so they can drive.
I online game a lot, stats are recorded and im pretty good. One bottle of heineken or similar and I drop to the level of a beginner and the game is not worth playing.
I ride an enduro bike off road, a lunch time pint and it is so much harder to stay on.
Point here is 2 pints and your reactions are very much slowed, you just dont realise it.
Out of curiosity herbiemercman since you have been breathalised many times, do you know what your blood alchohol is after 2 pints?

 

[HERBIEMERCMAN]

hi rappey69, i do not know what my blood alcho level is after two pints this to me would be spetmology.
if you find your enduro bike more difficult to handle after a pint then you have found your level and there is nothing wrong with that.

i just feel confident and safe to other road users.
i have driven all over europe and this country cars trucks and fast bikes for 30 years.

many times friends have tempted me to exceed my life long 2 pint limit but i never have.

i am involved and visit the isle of man tt races every year i see hundreds of bikers drinking on the ferry crossing for 3or4 hours they then cannot wait to ride the circuit. joey dunlop the best tt rider of all time used to have a few in the evenings and then be out at practice at 5 am. hurricane higgins could clear a snooker table after many pints. we are not all the same and it would be a sad world if we were.
you have to know your limit, a pint can unsettle some people and many choose not to drink at all, my wife for one, but it is nothing to do with driving. i am not suggesting everyone should start drinking two pints i am saying it is ok for me and time has proved it. the law allows us choice and protection from the over the limit abusers.

pilots are not breath tested prior to a flight but petrol tanker drivers are. in my opinion if everyone kept below a two pint limit we would see an end to drink related problems, cars crashes, air flights, street fighting, football, domestic violence. etc. enjoy your biking and i will carry on enjoying my two pints. best wishes.herbiemercman.

 

[carabind]

2 pints might be techinically under the limit but as mentioned above, 2 pints and your reactions are very much slowed, you just don't realise it.

If your wife/child were crossing the road, what would you rather was coming along the road? A sober driver , or one who'd had two pints?
Fact is that any acohol (even one) impairs judgment and that could be the difference between a near miss and death. Sorry but that's reality.

And if anything thinks they're a better driver after they've had one or two, well, then they've probably got a problem ie acholism...............

 

[David P]

If your wife/child were crossing the road, what would you rather was coming along the road? A sober driver , or one who'd had two pints?
Fact is that any acohol (even one) impairs judgment and that could be the difference between a near miss and death. Sorry but that's reality.

And if anything thinks they're a better driver after they've had one or two, well, then they've probably got a problem ie acholism...............

First comment, if my wife were crossing the road and a driver was aiming at her - well that just leads to so much comedy it's untrue! Do you write for a living? Real answer? A good driver, one that's paying attention. Otherwise he might miss... Sorry!

Otherwise, 'acholism' is actually spelt alcoholism and 'acohol (even one)' should probably read 'alcohol'.

IT'S A JOKE ! Jeasus, the whole world is living in fear and declaring war on anything and everything that it doesn't like. War on poverty, war on flu, war on you name it, war on drink driving. Political correctness is still going mad. But it does make me wonder as to how many you had before you started typing.

Recent studies show that even 1 pint impares our abouihety tooo tyytpe. twu ponts reelyy fuxxxss tghigns up!

D

 

[Alex M Grieve]

Recent studies show that even 1 pint impares our abouihety tooo tyytpe. twu ponts reelyy fuxxxss tghigns up!D

Now David, that is unfair. Think positively - 2 pints is enough to impair your performance, but the benefit is that it does relax you more, and you worry less about details, and the sorts of things that you are railing against.

 

[st4]

Now David, that is unfair. Think positively - 2 pints is enough to impair your performance, but the benefit is that it does relax you more, and you worry less about details, and the sorts of things that you are railing against.

It will impair your performance but to what extent?

1 pint will impair your performance, even a half will but to a lesser extent. It doesn't make you un safe.

There are so many other distractions in a car and in the road. Sat nav, radio, sweeties to eat (a vice of mine) that all have the same effect of deminishing ones attention from the task in hand, driving.

of course you can turn that argument on its head and say thats even more of a reason not to drink, and its a valid one too.

However alcohol tolerance is a factor in this. You can have a silly 17yr old girl who's not eaten much that day and has a alcho pop and then takes her equally silly friends out for a drive. She is under the limit but the alcohol has had a greater effect on her due to her lower tollerance, she can probably barely feel the pedals on her feet. She has the distraction of 3 equally silly and giggling teenagers and loud music to contend with on this journey too.

Or you have a bigger older fella who is altogether more switched on. He decides he has driven into town, he wants a curry and all the trappings (Nann bread, Pompadoms) and to wash it down with he has a pint of lager with his main. Because he has a) bedded down the alcohol the impact on this pint is much less b) he is older and bigger it has less of an impact anyway, and he has a good alcohol tollerance c) his journey is conducted in peace and his only distraction is the taste of curry.


Who'd you rather have on the road?

 

[television]

I can feel, and I know the differences in my reactions just after a ½ of beer, with me it gives a slight not caring feeling, and the awareness to concentrate more

 

[Alex M Grieve]

It will impair your performance but to what extent?Who'd you rather have on the road?

Sadly, all the arguments advanced in favour of "I can drink a bit and drive" could also be applied to other aspects of driving, such as speed. I know that I can drive safely at much more than the speed limit, and I know that my car will accommodate that effortlessly. I also think further ahead and make allowances for other traffic. But all of that cuts no ice if I am caught exceeding the speed limit.

Legal constraints around drinking and driving have proved notoriously difficult to enforce in our "legal" system. The late Nigel Dempster was got off a drink driving charge not that long ago, and over 30 years after the introduction of the current provisions, by a smart lawyer.

So our arrangements for policing drinking and driving lack "bottle", so to speak. Then we have campaigns which are very much "breathalyze on suspicion" - although that is not legal. Creative policemen will always think of a good reason to stop someone and breathalyze them, legal or not. It then gets down to passing the test on the meter or not, and all the arguments about laddetes v curry fanciers become irrelevant.

It is not the score on the meter that matters, it is the driving performance. And if alcohol impairs, it is then just an issue of "by how much". If you don't have an incident, that was OK. If you kill someone it was not. The dose was the same, only the outcome differed.

 

[PanzerMcGrory]

two pints ??
your all a shower of pussies as i like nothing better than a nice drive after ive had a crate of stella, snorted a few lines of coke and injected some of the talibans finest heroin.

 

[carabind]

Well good for you and I'm glad I don't live in Glasgow
Otherwise I might meet you driving up the otherside of the road late one night .
PS I know you're joking!

 

[Alex M Grieve]

two pints ??
your all a shower of pussies as i like nothing better than a nice drive after I've had a crate of Stella, snorted a few lines of coke and injected some of the talibans finest heroin.

You are absolutely correct Don - but don't you find it just takes more to get rid of the tremor as you get older?

 

[PanzerMcGrory]

Well good for you and I'm glad I don't live in Glasgow
Otherwise I might meet you driving up the otherside of the road late one night .
PS I know you're joking!

When im full of that cocktail my E-Class becomes chitty chitty bang bang and it appears to sail accross rivers and sprouts wings and flies aswell as im entertaining the cast from alice in wonderland in the back.

 

[PanzerMcGrory]

You are absolutely correct Don - but don't you find it just takes more to get rid of the tremor as you get older?

Tremors?? aahhh now i know,
i always thought it was the vibrations from all those strange creatures from under my house that are always trying to get me.

 

[Rappey69]

Being drunk and driving did save me from being badly injured when i crashed at 80 mph.
I was 21 and stupid and that was the last time i drunk and drove. No one else was involved!
There have been a few incidences where drunk drivers have crashed at speed and due to being drunk and relaxed they have survived relatively unscathed, sober it would have been another story.
Ok, if they were sober then the crash may not have happened in the first place.

 

[st4]

Sadly, all the arguments advanced in favour of "I can drink a bit and drive" could also be applied to other aspects of driving, such as speed. I know that I can drive safely at much more than the speed limit, and I know that my car will accommodate that effortlessly. I also think further ahead and make allowances for other traffic. But all of that cuts no ice if I am caught exceeding the speed limit.

Before the era of speed cameras it may well have cut some ice. An officer may have used discretion, and sent you on your way with a stern word in your ear, and being the sort of person who would recieve a stern word in the ear (rather than a ticket) it would be an entirely more beneficial exercise.

The same goes for drink driving. The breath test may let some "bad apples" roam free. Maybe 0 tolerance is the best way, or maybe the american way of a road side drunk test like stand on 1 leg type thing as that tests ability to perform of sorts.

I commonly don't drink and drive, but maybe the morning after a few I may well be in charge of a vehicle above the perscribed limit, I don't know for sure but it may well be the case. I try and limit my driving to later on in the day but apparently 48hrs after the event (maybe 72 if you head into town with Don) you could still have a high alcohol concentration.

I know in the eyes of the law what you say is right. Whatabout drivers therefore that cause an accident because of tiredness/unwellness and whilst they don't nod off may not feel so good that day and as such their concentration isn't as good and they inadvertily cause an accident. How would this be assessed. What about a driver who is irate/emmotional/upset etc about something thats happenned to them that day and they aren't fully on the ball and they cause a prang.All of these have the same effect as a drink driver, the ability to control their vehicle and concentrate on their surroundings is deminished.

You see driving on the road there are so many variables that cause people not to perform 100% to the task in hand, driving. Drinking is just one of many, we can legistlate against this one, but it doesn't protect us against the others. I could step out onto the road and be run over and killed, does it really matter if the driver was drunk, on the phone, distracted by his screaming children in the back, upset over losing his job, changing the radio station. Social conditioning says it does if he were drunk or on the phone, but not the rest of them, but whats the difference as it was unintentional on his part and avoidable in all parts?

 

[HERBIEMERCMAN]

hi carabind, you must agree with what st4 is outlinig which is what i have been trying to get over. the fact is we are all different,

i am a responsible long term drinker if you and i set off on an obstacle cource with me post my two pints and you on none then it could well be i react better than you or the same as you.

i was a biker in a big club and involved every year with the tt races in iom you had to be really "on it" to avoid any adversity.

i also fully agree with david p's comments not about your gramatical skills which are comparable with mine, but what he says about political correctness.

finally i would argue that a non alchohol driver on his / her mobile phone or one fiddling with their sat nav would be no match for me in observing potential hazards post my two pints. best wishes. herbiemercman.

 

[Alex M Grieve]

Tremors?? aahhh now i know,
i always thought it was the vibrations from all those strange creatures from under my house that are always trying to get me.

No Don - that would be paranoia. Let us not confuse neurosis with psychosis!