Today we report on a presentation in Rotorua last week by Wellington Regional Hospital emergency medicine specialist Dr Paul Quigley, about the harm alcohol is doing our community.
Alcohol abuse can lead to all manner of harm, be it violence, health problems or drink-driving.
Last week, the Land Transport AmendmentBill 2013 passed its third and final reading in Parliament. The bill will lower the drink-driving limit for drivers aged 20 years and over from 400 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath, to 250 micrograms, as of December 1.
The "don't drink and drive" message has been drummed into Kiwis for years - as long as I can remember, anyway. Yet every week in the Rotorua District Court, and other courts around the country, we see person after person in the dock for driving with excess breath-alcohol. Many of them are well over the 400mcg limit and a good number are repeat offenders.
Which begs the question, do these offenders actually pay any attention to the law? Do they monitor what they are drinking and conscientiously switch to lemonade once they have reached the legal driving limit? I don't think so. Those who drink and drive surely either have a total disregard for the law (and the safety of those on the road) and/or are getting behind the wheel because they are too drunk to make smart decisions.
So is the reduction of the legal limit, as well-intentioned as it is, actually going to make any difference?
Those who currently have a couple of drinks at the pub on a Friday night before driving home will, come December 1, probably now only have the one. But were those people ever the problem?
Rotorua MP Todd McClay believes the lowered limit will help reduce the harm drink-driving does in our community. I hope it does but I, for one, am not holding my breath.
