Can I open this up a bit...?
When I started driving getting pissed and driving your car was de rigueur, people would always boast about how much they'd drunk and
still driven home. Or they'd driven home because they were too pissed to walk... A teacher at my old school was caught completely paralytic, driving the wrong way around a roundabout with his hazard warning lights flashing. How we laughed when he told us that he had them on 'because he was a hazard'. Needless to say he was not banned...
Clearly that situation couldn't continue and I'm sure that many lives were lost because of that attitude.
However, now I feel we've gone too far the other way... drinking drivers have been demonised by PR campaigns and programmes like Road Wars which always show drunks driving across pavements, running down school children etc. followed by the inevitable 'statistics' about how many deaths/accidents are caused as a result of drink...
As a result the Sheeple gladly accept that the drinking limit should be reduced and applaud 'sting' operations like that which apparently caused Nick's arrest (taking down the number plates over everybody parked outside the pub)...
But can we believe the government statistics on all this? On balance and past experience I suspect that the statistics on drinking and driving are as reliable as a twenty year old Skoda - you can't believe anything this lot says...
I'll bet that the majority of accidents 'involving alcohol' are caused by regular offenders who have alcohol issues - they've probably been banned already but persist in drinking and driving (I know people that fall into this category). Or alcohol is attributed to the cause of an 'accident' which would have happened anyway...
I'll bet that the majority of people that are banned from driving while under the influence of alcohol are people like Nick who have just had a couple of drinks and are perfectly capable of controlling their car. At least his car was taxed and insured and he had a valid driving licence.
I know it is proven that alcohol affects your abilities and the speed of response but lets face it, I reckon even under the influence I can drive a damn site better than the majority of motorists on the road who are too arrogant or simply unable to control their vehicle to drive safely.
Personally, I think the police should be out arresting those that drive without a licence or tax or insurance or in wrecks without MoTs. And obviously anybody who is unable to control their vehicle in an appropriate manner be that through inability, arrogance or the influence of alcohol...
When every car and everybody on the road is legal and all the fuckwits that can't or won't drive within the law are taken off the road (jailed if necessary) and when all the repeat offenders are locked-up then lets look at the statistics and see if there is a reason for arresting otherwise law abiding citizens like Nick who quite frankly have done nothing wrong IMHO.
That is all...