Drink-drive changes will force pubs to close

4:49pm Friday 4th April 2008

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WHEN I was a young sports reporter, I became an expert at hiding pints of bitter behind plant pots.

The pressure to booze when hanging around amateur soccer players was overwhelming. They'd insist on buying you a round, and then insist you gulp it down.

"I don't want to drink and drive," I'd say, and there'd be howls of derision.

But even then, a thousand or so years ago when I was young and stupid, I resisted the temptation.

I became adept at taking the drink, thanking the purchaser and then sidling over to the nearest flower pot where the pint would stay there forever more.

For I knew then as I know now that drinking and driving is the height of recklessness. Not only do you endanger your well-being, but you imperil the lives of everyone else on the road as well.

Furthermore, you endanger your licence and your liberty.

This information will not be new to any of our readers because it's been ingrained upon the UK culture for donkeys years, certainly since I passed my test 25 years ago. The automatic driving ban and the threat of prison sentences put paid to the abuse.

Responsible British people just don't drink and drive. However, there's a brigade of nutters who will always flout the law, and nothing but jail or death will stop them.

That's why the new suggestions to reduce the drink-drive limit will do very little - apart from result in massively more drivers being banned from the road.

It emerged this week that just one glass of wine or a single pint of beer could soon put motorists in the dock.

The crackdown, which has apparently won support from Government ministers, would mean a cut in the limit from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg - the legal maximum found in most of the rest of Europe.

This would be accompanied by increased enforcement with police likely to be given wider powers to introduce random breath-testing.

And it could lead to 24-hour road blocks and cordons in areas where drink-driving is a problem.

According to the national press, ministers will consult on this later in the year.

Now I am a fairly moderate drinker and never consume more than half a pint of beer before driving, so why would I see this as an issue? I don't even object to the principle of random breath tests because if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear.

However, I predict massive fall-out if this goes ahead. The drink-drive limit would be so low that many motorists wouldn't stand a chance if they were random breath-tested the following morning on the way to work.

It would mean either criminalising a huge number of new people, or would bring an end to many a traditional night out.

People who caught a taxi there and back to the office do would still get done the next morning, even if they hadn't got completely sloshed. Of course, even under the current limits, motorists can still easily be convicted for drink-driving the day after a bender.

However, the new restrictions, coupled with the road blocks, will massively increase the morning-after conviction rate.

Supporters of the draconian new rules will say that it will save lives, but boozy lunatics will still flout the law whatever the law is. They will still insist that anyone in their company gulps down as many pints as possible.

And responsible young drivers will still be forced to hide their drinks behind the plant pots.

The drink-drive dangers will therefore not go away.

But the great British pubs will continue to disappear in their droves because moderate drinkers will be either too afraid to venture out - or will be locked up in jail for having two glasses of wine the previous night.