Have a Drink, Have a Drive...

An addendum to my diatribe about right wing nut jobs and their warped world views they attempt to impose upon the rest of us: the other day I heard a 'debate' on the radio over drink drive limits and whether they should be lowered or abolished.  The item had been sparked by a, subsequently rejected, proposal in Eire to exempt some people in rural areas from drink driving laws in order to prevent them from suffering social exclusion as a result of being unable to get to the pub.  Anyway, one of the participants in this so called debate was from the Libertarian Society and proceeded to argue that the police stopping and breathalysing drivers on suspicion of drink driving, when their driving hadn't been noticeably erratic, was an infringement of the drivers' human rights, and this outweighed any health and safety considerations.  Bizarrely, his entire argument focused on the alleged fact that most drivers stopped by the police and found to be over the drink drive limit were not driving erratically at the time they were stopped, as if this somehow made it OK that they were breaking the law.

At no point did he address the fact that, regardless of whether or not their driving was noticeably erratic at the time they were stopped, these drivers would still have been suffering from the effects of alcohol: slowed responses and impaired judgement.  The reality is that their reflexes would be sufficiently affected that their reactions to unexpected situations on the road would have been significantly slowed.  Meaning, in practical terms, that they wouldn't be able to stop in time if a vehicle pulled out in front of them, braked suddenly, or a pedestrian stepped onto the highway - to give but three possibilities - they wouldn't be able to brake  in time or take effective evasive action.  Their impaired judgement would likely increase the chances of them being the one pulling out without warning, ignoring traffic signals or not observing properly at junctions.  However, as long they could still drive in more a less a straight line, their supposed 'human rights' should take precedence over the health and safety of other road users.  At least, that's the argument the libertarian seemed to be making.  Which is bloody scary and surely indicative of how detached from reality these nut jobs are.