How attitudes to drink driving changed

[Pat "5mph"]

I'm 40 and I remember my Dads friend claiming that most people drove better when they'd been drinking!
I also remember my Dad refusing to wear a seat belt claiming it would cause more injuries than it would prevent.
my feeling is that we'll t to a stage en speeding and general road hog behaviour is considered antisocial but it wont be for a long time.

Yes, I remember those things too.
Hope the day will come (in my lifetime) that shouting abuse at cyclists will become antisocial

 

[david k]

It's never been called 'drunk driving' in English and Welsh law - it's always been 'driving under the influence'.

sorry yes, im not entirely sure what the legal terms are/were, i do know people used to say you shouldnt drunk drive as opposed to drink and drive, certainly round here they did anyway

 

[dellzeqq]

I'm relatively young, in that I don't remember a time when drink driving was considered acceptable, but my understanding is there was a time where it was considered more so, and there was substantive campaigning involved to have it taken more seriously, resulting in the attitudinal shift we have today where most people would never even consider driving over the limit - or even drinking at all when needing to drive.

I'm interested in hearing from those who would have lived through such change, and consider how the campaigns were fought and their effect, as I feel that pushing for attitude changes would be more effective towards making cycling safer and more popular than things like cycle lanes and the like.

I lived in the sticks back in the early 80s, and I well remember an abrupt change for the better. It came about when publicans were told that the police would oppose the renewal of their licenses if they caught somebody coming out of the pub with too much booze in them. I can almost date it - a year either side of 1981

 

[ColinJ]

I know better than anyone else what I can do. Introducing a law will make people break it as a matter of principle. This is the way we've always done it. It's my right as a freeborn Englishman. We didn't win the war to get bossed about by little Hitlers.

Too right!





So, when homosexuality was illegal in the UK, you went out and got yourself a hunky boyfriend just to show 'em who's boss!

 

[Haitch]

Too right!
So, when homosexuality was illegal in the UK, you went out and got yourself a hunky boyfriend just to show 'em who's boss!

Oh come on, Colin, cut me a bit of slack here. Can you honestly claim that the pulp reaction to any progressive change in the UK isn't the one described in the first paragraph?

 

[Haitch]

What a knob!

Abusive and thick or thick and abusive. There doesn't seem to be a third option. Please clarify. Knob.

 

[ColinJ]

Oh come on, Colin, cut me a bit of slack here. Can you honestly claim that the pulp reaction to any progressive change in the UK isn't the one described in the first paragraph?

I admit that I do not like being told what I can and cannot do but there are cases when governments are right to do that.

I do not think that they should try and force cyclists to wear helmets - that should be a personal choice since nobody else is endangered by an unhelmeted cyclist.

Drink driving is clearly a different case though. When I was young and foolish I'd happily get into cars driven by drunken mates and I can recall at least 5 or 6 incidents which might easily have produced multiple fatalities. A teenage friend of my stepdaughter died when her drunken boyfriend crashed his car on the way back from the pub. We need laws to protect the public from selfish stupidity like that. When people were allowed to choose, far too many chose to drive dangerously.

As for the second paragraph ...

 

[Beebo]

Have a read of this BBC report from Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21143199
"Councillors in south-west Ireland have backed a plan to relax the drink-drive limits for some isolated constituents.

The motion backed by Kerry county councillors would allow police to issue permits overriding the legal limit.

Councillor Danny Healy-Rae, who proposed the motion, said it would apply to "older people" who "are being isolated now at home, and a lot of them falling into depression".

 

[tyred]

Have a read of this BBC report from Ireland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21143199
"Councillors in south-west Ireland have backed a plan to relax the drink-drive limits for some isolated constituents.

The motion backed by Kerry county councillors would allow police to issue permits overriding the legal limit.

Councillor Danny Healy-Rae, who proposed the motion, said it would apply to "older people" who "are being isolated now at home, and a lot of them falling into depression".

That will never happen. County Councils have no power to do anything very much and Healy-Rae is just like his Dad, someone who likes the sound of his own voice and believes that any publicity is good publicity.

 

[bianchi1]

Speeding is subjective though because it isn't as black and white as drink or drug driving

How is speeding subjective? Surely you are or you are not, while drink driving is more open to confusion..for example different country limits.

 

[EltonFrog]

I know better than anyone else what I can do. Introducing a law will make people break it as a matter of principle. This is the way we've always done it. It's my right as a freeborn Englishman. We didn't win the war to get bossed about by little Hitlers.

It wasn't so much the drink/driving campaign but the attitude to it, and it's been repeated ad nauseum over the years: gay rights, women's rights, seat belts, the EU, immigrants, speeding, racial equality, health and safety...

What's your point?

 

[Dave Davenport]

What's your point?

I honestly read that post as a joke, I'm still not sure???

 

[Haitch]

I honestly read that post as a joke, I'm still not sure???

Partly. But also that people are viscerally opposed to change enforced from without. And although the law might progress, the attitude remains the same at root. I hope that clears things up a bit.

 

[glenn forger]

Speeding was implicated in over a thousand deaths on the roads last year, cannabis in none.

Drink driving casualties have declined dramatically, I look forward to when speeding drivers are viewed with the same disgust as drunk drivers. And those Kerry councillors are publicans, funnily enough.

 

[Hip Priest]

At 33, I'm perhaps too young to recall a time when it was socially acceptable to drink and drive, but a friend of my father's - a quite well known public figure incidentally - tells a story of how he work up the morning after his work Christmas party, having driven.

He couldn't remember a thing about getting home, but had managed to vomit copiously over his steering wheel and dash.