Editorial: Stop drunks from driving

The alcohol interlock device seems like a very good idea that should be used more often.

On the face of it, the alcohol interlock device seems like a very good idea that should be used more than it is at present.

If you have never heard of it, the device, which is fitted to cars, prevents a drunk driver starting the vehicle and is used by courts as a sentence for repeat drink-drivers.

On our front page yesterday, the Automobile Association said that more convicted drink-drivers in the Bay deserved to have this sentence imposed on them.

Fewer than 10 drink-drivers were sentenced by Hawke's Bay courts to have the devices fitted.

Offenders convicted of repeat drink-driving offences or an excessively high blood or breath-alcohol concentration can be given an alcohol interlock sentence. They can then apply for an alcohol interlock licence and have an interlock installed. Such drivers must blow into the device - recording a breath-alcohol level of zero - before their car will start.

The device has certainly sparked interest on our website - hbtoday.co.nz - and our Facebook page. One person suggested that this device should be mandatory for all vehicles.

It sounds good on paper, but cost may prevent it from becoming a reality.

Anyway, I would like to believe that most of us are responsible citizens and would not need a device to tell us that we should not be behind the wheel of a car.

Another theme that emerged from our online comments was that many people believed it would be a simple system to bypass. I don't know that level of detail but I am sure there are safeguards against that.

You would like to think that people who are forced down this route would have enough sense to abide by it.

There is always another option if they don't - prison!