I won't be signing up to this. Get behind something that will do some good.
I have spent the last week thinking long and hard about my response to the Herald on Sunday's Two Drinks Max campaign.
My initial knee-jerk reaction was it's just another tabloid newspaper's bandwagon-jumping to get a bit more traction with its readers and get a few electronic signatures to allow people to say they support such a noble cause.
So instead of firing off a column straight away I thought I'd mull over this two drink thing - unusual for me I know.
After much thought, and again reading bits and pieces, the general self-congratulatory tone starting to come to the surface and I have come to the conclusion my original gut reaction was correct. The Two Drinks Max thing is nothing more than the latest top-of-mind issue that's the current thing to bang the drum about.
I admire the marketing strategy to get more readers, and taking the moral high ground, of jumping on the "New Zealanders drink too much" train, because we do, but to be the self-appointed bastions of law change is taking it a bit far.
It lost all credibility for me when the newspaper named five MPs who could save lives. How, I'm not sure, especially when a couple of them said they don't drink - so why would you sign up for something you're already doing?
My stance on this arbitrary number plucking out of the air was reiterated by the unfortunate death of a woman enjoying a coffee on the side of the road who was ploughed into by an alleged drunk driver.
These are the sorts of people who would get into a car pissed even if there was zero tolerance when it came to driving a car.
The absurdity of a two-drink maximum is the people who sign up are already responsible enough to know being half-cut and driving doesn't mix. I give this campaign about another week or three and it'll be gone only to be replaced by something along the lines of saving a few more whales or whatever.
I won't be signing up to this campaign or anything like it. Give me something with some cojones and I'll be there in a flash. Chest thumping does nothing for me along with a lot of people I have spoken to this past week. We don't want a flash campaign, we want action and lowering the limit won't solve a bloody thing.
Banning someone from driving a car for five years after a second offence, and permanently for a third, would do the trick for me. I would have preferred a publication to have a go at why so many recidivist drink-drivers are allowed to keep on getting their licences back. Or maybe a concentrated follow up on why public money is spent on helping disqualified drivers get their licences back as reported in the Sunday Star Times. Now that's what I call a big worry - you get your licence suspended for a good reason, mostly drink driving but allegedly Work and Income will help pay so you get it back. Go figure.
So instead of fudging around the corners and telling everyone to only have two drinks, get behind something that'll do some good. Hit the heavy drinkers and tell the PC brigade who reckon "the most important thing for drink-driving is treatment" and having people in work can be "therapeutic" to pull their collective heads in. Not too sure how letting someone who's been convicted of drink driving go back to driving will stop them drinking.
Have a go at that lot and stop targeting folk who already know better.
