Britain's drivers may have 0.0 BAC limit
This story from the Daily Express states that ministers will be discussing a 0.0 limit.
Thankfully, it appears that this is just a suggestion, and isn't intended to become law just yet. Still, I am bothered by the statement that 4 out of 10 people would support a 0.0 limit.
I wouldn't think that BAC equipment is foolproof. What would the tolerance be for a 0.0 law, I wonder? Would they really take people in for a 0.001 reading, for example? Maybe it is only the blood test that has that many significant figures. At some point though you risk a very small amount of alcohol showing up due to false positives, and we need to make sure that we don't set a legal limit lower than we can accurately measure in the field.
I think a 0.0 level is unnecessary. I would need to see the evidence that having any amount of alcohol in your system posed an unacceptable risk. Remember, we accept risk every day - you don't live a risk free life and neither do I. Your next meal might be undercooked - are you never going to go out again? That canned food on your shelf might have botulism - should you grow all of your own food? Of course not - we accept that certain levels of risk are OK - and in general we are well served by this. I don't think that the level of risk imposed by a 0.001 BAC is significantly greater than that by a 0.0 driver, and I'd hate to ruin someone's life over it.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home