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Flying over a bank and smashing into a tree, breaking his girlfriend's collarbone and watching her gasp for breath changed racing driver Greg Murphy's attitude to drinking and driving.
He describes his actions that day as "stupid". Murphy had been drinking before the crash but was not over the legal limit. However, he believes he would have been over 50mg per 100ml of blood - the proposed limit recommended by Ministry of Transport.
Murphy has thrown his weight behind the Herald on Sunday's "Two Drinks Max" campaign to persuade the Government to lower the legal blood alcohol level. In fact, he is willing to take it further, pledging not to drive after drinking any alcohol.
The Government is using New Zealanders as "live guinea pigs" as it drags its heels on reforming the drink-driving law, Murphy says. To date, the Government has resisted making a change, instead ordering a two-year research project into crashes caused by drivers with blood alcohol levels between 50mg per 100ml of blood and the current limit of 80mg per 100ml.
Murphy thinks a combination of the highest blood alcohol limit in the world and poor driver education is a recipe for carnage on our roads, and he makes a grim prediction for this Labour Day weekend.
"In New Zealand there will be some more people killed this weekend because of drink-driving."
Experts agree that lowering the drink-driving limit is the one action that will save the most lives on New Zealand's roads, findings backed up by the Ministry of Transport, the Government's key adviser on road safety.
The ministry estimates lowering the limit would save between 15 and 33 lives a year as well as prevent between 320 and 686 injuries annually, plus address a social cost of up to $238 million a year.
The Government's decision to hold off for another two years has been slammed by those who want the law changed - a move supported by the
Kiwi public, according to polls.
A Herald on Sunday reader poll showed three-quarters of respondents would not drive after having more than two drinks. And a recent survey
by the Ministry of Transport showed 85 per cent support of limiting drivers to two or fewer drinks before driving.
Data shows that as many drivers with a blood alcohol rate of between 50mg and 80mg died in crashes in the past three years as
those who were at, or just over, the limit.
But Transport Minister Steven Joyce says we need more research, a move that angers Alcohol Healthwatch director Rebecca Willaims.
"There's just no excuse for not adopting a lower level - that's what all the evidence and science is telling us," she says. "That's what the public
is telling us. There's just this big gaping, waiting hole there from the Government side. We simply do not need more research."
The current drink-driving limit allows for far more than one or two social drinks on a night out - a blood alcohol level that experts argue is too high to allow for safe driving.
Earlier this year the New Zealand Herald took part in an experiment to see how much people could drink before they breached the 80mg blood alcohol limit.
Photographer Richie Robertson, who weighs 85kg, drank nine bottles of lager (amounting to 11.7 standard drinks) in just under four hours before reaching the limit.
His colleague, reporter Beck Vass, who weighs 59kg, remained slightly within the limit after drinking five glasses of wine in just under two hours.
A year ago, the Herald on Sunday, recruited four comedians (a profession well known for its bar-loving and on-the-road lifestyle) to undertake driving skills tests while drinking.
After six standard drinks, Ewan Gilmour and Justine Smith remained under the limit. Penny Ashton and Cori Gonzalez-Macuer tipped the breathalyser at slightly over. All showed their driving skills and judgment were impaired by alcohol.
Disturbingly, the more drunk the comedians became - and the worse their driving became - the better they thought they were behind the wheel.
Although these experiential investigations of the driving limit may not meet the scientific rigour required for lawmakers to make decisions, there are plenty of studies on the impairment effects of alcohol. Nearly 300 of them.
Getting behind the wheel after a night of drinking is a decision that haunts Shane Dennis every day.
It was 2am - after a night out with his cousin and close friend, Tania Rawiri, in July 2007 - when the Waikato man made the worst call of his life: With 25-year-old Rawiri as passenger, Dennis drove the 400m from the pub to his home.
Minutes later the car was under the wheels of a truck, Rawiri was dead and Dennis seriously injured.
The 22-year-old factory worker spent six days in Waikato Hospital, including time in intensive care, with head and neck injuries. Blood tests determined he was over the limit.
The distraught Dennis pleaded guilty to driving with excess blood alcohol causing death and served 11 months in prison. But the sentence was nothing compared to a life sentence of regret.
"Nothing can be more punishment than living with the fact that I've lost a mate and living with the fact that I caused it."
Rawiri's mother, Tiwai, cares for her daughter's little girl, Lorielle, who is almost 9.
Studies show the risk of fatal crashes increases exponentially as blood alcohol levels increase. A driver aged 30 with a blood alcohol level of 50mg is 5.8 times more at risk of crashing, and either killing themselves or someone else, than a sober driver. A driver with a 80mg level is 16.5 times more at risk.
The figures are even more alarming for younger drivers. A driver aged between 20 and 29 with a 80mg blood alcohol level is 50 times more at risk of causing a fatal crash than a sober driver.
Police do not record alcohol levels for drivers involved in crashes who are below the limit. To gather data on the number of fatal and serious injury crashes caused by people over the proposed 50mg limit and below the current 80mg limit, police must be granted powers through the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, currently before a select committee.
The bill covers raising the mini-mum driving age from 15 years to 16, introducing a zero blood alcohol level for drivers aged under 20 and for repeat drink-drivers and increasing the penalties for drink-drivers causing death.
Written submissions on the bill closed this week. The committee has until December 16 to present its final report.
Lowering the drink-driving limit to 50mg - the World Health Organisation recommendation - would bring New Zealand in line with Australia, Canada and most of Europe.
The UK Government is considering lowering the limit from 80mg to 50mg after a report by legal and academic expert Sir Peter North predicted a reduced limit would save 168 lives on British roads in the first year and as many as 303 lives by the sixth year.
The New Zealand Ministry of Transport argues that a lowered limit will make a difference because drivers are more likely to keep a better count of their drinks.
And they will also be in a better condition to make decisions about whether or not to drive. At 80mg, the ministry says, decision making is significantly impaired.
ALAC [Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand] chief executive Gerard Vaughan agrees that lower limits such as those in Australia means drivers are
more likely to make sensible decisions before they hop in a car.
"From our point of view we can only see benefit in lowering the BAC [blood alcohol content] limit," he says.
In Australia, drivers are very aware of how much they can drink before they are over the limit. In New Zealand, Vaughan says, that doesn't happen
because of the risk that drink-drivers will "drink up to the benchmark".
"For an average male, you could drink three-quarters of a bottle of wine in 90 minutes. No enforcement agencies want to promote that message."
National Addiction Centre director Professor Doug Sellman says a campaign to lower drink-driving limits in New Zealand will "save lives, save injuries, save money and have a significant impact on the heavy drinking culture as well".
Sellman has had his own experience with a drink-driver. He was hit head-on driving on the Auckland motorway and suffered concussion, broken ribs and a damaged knee.
He suspects pressure from the powerful alcohol industry, concerned about a dent in profits, is one of the reasons the Government has not moved to lower the drink-driving level.
"There is some really unfortunate siding with the industry," says Sellman. "This is what makes my blood boils."
It was a crash caused by a drink-driver that fired Anna Reid's passion for road safety.
The Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD) national manager knew a 15-year-old girl in her Hawke's Bay town who was killed by a drink-driver.
The carload of young victims was driving between Napier and Hastings in the middle of the afternoon when the car was hit by a drink-driver coming home from the pub on the wrong side of the road.
Years later, Reid faced the killer at a SADD meeting where the victims' parents, a crash survivor and the driver met to discuss the crash.
"It was quite strange that the incident propelled me into the organisation as a student. I ended up coming up full circle with it later and hearing about it from every angle," says Reid.
"The facts of the crash and the people involved still stay with me - you can only imagine when it is your loved one that's lost, it would just never leave."
SADD has thrown its support behind the Herald on Sunday campaign to lower the road toll: "You get to a point where you say, 'No measure should be out of our reach in terms of reducing the loss of life.'"
National manager of road policing Superintendent Paula Rose says drivers are impaired well under the legal limit: "To be 100 per cent sure, don't drink and drive."
The police hesitate to recommend a specific drink limit because there are so many variables involved including the size of the person and how much they've eaten.
Hosts at parties should not keep topping up people's glasses, she says, because it makes it impossible for people to keep track of what they are drinking.
Murphy says drinking alcohol has a direct effect on a driver's ability behind the wheel: "Having alcohol in your system increases reaction times
and your ability to make decisions at a critical stage."
Drink-drivers, says Murphy, are gambling with death.
"It's just the toss of the coin. The risk of killing yourself or someone else is so high. Do want to have that on your conscience?"
- Additional reporting by Leigh van der Stoep and Kieran Nash
If you think you or someone you know has a problem with alcohol, help and information is available from the confidential alcohol helpline, 0800 787 797 or visit www.adanz.org.nz
