Roads were for everyone to do as they please. As and when new dangers arrive, restrictions and limits are brought in. You can walk drunk. You can roller skate drunk. You can pogo stick drunk. You can moonwalk drunk. You can cycle drunk. You used to be able to drive drunk. But as the deaths and injury increased rules and laws were brought in for motor vehicles. Should there becone a need to expand that if deaths and injuries occur then I dare say it will.
For the rest, judgement is required. I’ll exercise my own judgement.
I agree on the whole but I think there are two distinctions between driving a motor vehicle and the other activities.
Firstly, if you're incapacitated, then attempting any of them other than driving, and you're not going to get very far or very fast. If incapacitated when driving, then you could even pass out at the wheel and still be going extremely fast in a box weighing over a ton - you could literally demolish a house. There's a reason why drink-driving laws are different to drink-cycling and drink-walking laws.
Secondly, all the activities except for driving are freedoms that all people in this country have but driving a motor vehicle is only allowed under a revocable licence that is subject to certain conditions, including not driving with a blood-alcohol level over the legal limit.
And as has been said before, drink-cycling is not against the law but being unfit due to alcohol is.
Someone earlier hypothesised on a weaving cyclist causing a car to alter course and kill a pedestrian (a rather tenuous attempt to support an opinion imho) - if the driver is driving safely and giving proper distance between their vehicle and the cyclist, and allowing safe passing distance, then they should certainly have time to brake safely - certainly not swerve at speed into a pedestrian (presumably on the pavement and not stepping out into the road in front of the drunk cyclist and dangerously close motorist). You could equally hypothesise on a wholly sober but poorly person fainting and falling into the road - would you deduce that walking in public when feeling poorly should be scorned upon and not be allowed?
Re. the posts about cyclist and pedestrian collisions - my personal experience is that I've never, as a cyclist, collided with a pedestrian but, as a pedestrian, I have been hit at speed by a cyclist - it was early in the morning and I was walking to work; I presume that the cyclist was on his way to work too. Both of us were on the pavement travelling in opposite directions. I was on the outside where the pavement narrowed, with a hedge on the inside and a bus shelter on the pavement between me and the road. The cyclist made no attempt to slow down or let me through the gap but instead "went for it" and hit me with his left hand, still on the handlebar - which made his front wheel turn suddenly and sent him flying, sliding off the bike along the pavement. I was not even bruised - so I can completely understand how cyclists can come off worse in collisions with pedestrians.
Personally, after a night in the pub with my mates, I will often go for a 20-25 mile ride down the dark, narrow country lanes with my trusty dynamo lights lighting up my way. I'm sure that if I was
unfit due to alcohol, then this wouldn't be possible without it being patently obvious to me, like falling off or having near misses. These are very narrow, very "country" lanes and, apart from the first mile or so (and the last), I rarely see any other vehicle.
Edited to correct spelling mistake.
