Cooking with Alcohol
The Herald has kicked off it’s “Two Drinks Max” campaign today. Just what we need – more emotional heat and less rationality.
the drink-driving problem is not going to be improved by a lower limit, but by a change of culture.
”I don’t have any problem with the somewhat simplistic “Two Drinks Max”. If people want to pledge themselves to this; more power to them. However, I do object to the dishonest way the Herald has linked this campaign to it’s demand that the government reduces the blood alcohol limit for driving to 0.05%. These are not the same thing at all. The first is a voluntary pledge that effects only the volunteer. The second is a demand for a law that will make it illegal for any of us to drive with a BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration) of greater than 0.05%. Unfortunately for the latter, there is no good evidence that someone with a BAC of 0.08% is more of a danger on the road than someone with a BAC of 0.05%. There is evidence that there is increased impairment of judgement and slower reflexes, but that has not been shown to translate into a higher accident rate. That may sound non-intuitive – until you realise that drivers near the 0.08% limit instinctively tend to drive more carefully than a driver with a BAC of 0.05% – unless the driver is very young. There is also significant impairment to driving skills at 0.05% leading to the question of why this arbitrary limit as opposed to 0.08%?
There is also good evidence that countries that have adopted the lower BAC limits have improved their road fatality rates. This is the bulk of the “overwhelming weight of scientific research” that the Herald cites. Unfortunately, this data is actually much more difficult to interpret than the Herald and “the Law Commission, the Ministry of Transport and top police officers” would have you believe. All the countries that lowered their BAC levels to 0.05% did so in conjunction with increase police presence on the roads and a strong public campaign against drink-driving. It is therefore not clear whether the drop in fatalities was due to the campaign, the extra police or due to the drop in BAC.
Proponents of the reduction in BAC point to the fact that New Zealand’s alcohol-related road accident fatality statistics are worse than Australia’s (28 as opposed to 22 per million population). They attribute this to the 0.05% alcohol BAC limit in Australia. However, from the Ministry of Transport’s own website we get this statement:
“Another indicator of the prevalence of drink driving is the results from Police breath testing operations. Nationally about 1 in 150 Australian drivers tested exceed the legal limit of BAC 0.05. In contrast, 1 in 85 New Zealand drivers exceed our limit of BAC 0.08. In Victoria the rate is 1 in 314 drivers tested and in Queensland it is 1 in 192 drivers tested.”
Did you get that? 1:150 Australian drivers have a BAC exceeding 0.05%. New Zealand has twice that rate exceeding 0.08%. It should be stunningly obvious that the drink-driving problem is not going to be improved by a lower limit, but by a change of culture.
Which brings me back to the Herald’s campaign. It is a pity that they have seen fit to link their campaign to the reduction of the BAC level instead of sticking with their “Two Drinks Max” campaign at face value. A massive campaign to get people to pledge to less alcohol would probably do far more good than dropping the limit. New Zealanders are far too apt to wink at excessive drinking and condone it as laddish behaviour. I have many patients who tell me, without blushing, that they drink a dozen beers on a Saturday night with the boys. Apparently they think this is normal. Most of these people are responsible and would never dream of driving home in that state – but they give legitimacy to it, encouraging less responsible people to drink excessively. These few then go on to create our appalling drink-driving stats. “Two Drinks Max” might go some small way towards mitigating that culture of drunkenness.
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- Change the culture not the law « Homepaddock — [...] like Macdoctor I think the paper would be better to campaign to change the culture rather than the [...]
Oct 24 10 9:23 pm
A law change without a culture change will achieve little but if we change the culture we might not need to change the law.
Oct 24 10 9:26 pm
Indeed
Oct 25 10 5:49 pm
What do you think of Mr Civil’s comments in this article?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10682894
He acknowledges that few of his patients have blood alcohol levels just below the current limits, but believes that lowering them further will be signal that “makes people less willing to drink before they drive”.
I must admit I scoffed when I read the title of the article (for the very reasons you listed), but I was then surprised to see which doctor they were referring to! He is a person I have a great deal of respect for.
Oct 25 10 6:26 pm
“People often ask what percentage of patients I treat are at between 50mg and 80mg of blood alcohol.
“It would be quite low, but that’s not the point. The signal of lowering it makes people less willing to drink before they drive.
“Lowering it to 30mg would signal that drinking and driving is not acceptable.”
The logic is not good, and once people realise that lowering the level to 50mg wont significantly alter the stats they will again shrug their shoulders and make no attempt to modify thee drinking culture.
Back to square one when the Herald and assorted do-gooders move on to the next crusade.
JC
Oct 25 10 11:28 pm
I too have a great deal of respect for Ian. But that does not mean he is right in this case.
Lowering the limit to 0.03% is most likely to alter the drinking habits of those who drink small to moderate amounts of alcohol. It is unlikely to alter that habits of those who drink to excess. Recall that I said that most will act responsibly when they’ve had a skin full and call a taxi or have a designated driver. But their actions will still encourage excessive drink in those idiots who will attempt to drive in that state. Said idiots will have a BAC of 0.1% or higher. The lower limit will make no difference to them – they are already breaking the law at the current 0.08% level.
I’m afraid Ian is likely to be disappointed in the result, if he gets his wish.
Oct 27 10 12:40 pm
I’m an Australian who has spent a lot of time on N.Z. roads. I notice a big difference in driving habits. N.Z. traffic is less predictable and orderly: speeding, unsafe overtaking and aggression is more common in N.Z. I think more lives would be saved by a change in culture than a change in BAC limits. I know that’s easy to say and hard to do.
And please, no Aussies vs. Kiwis mudslinging. If it wasn’t for my elderly parents, I’d migrate to N.Z. as soon as I could.
Oct 27 10 6:45 pm
Yes. As an ex-South African I concur with your findings. The only drivers, I have encountered, who are more aggressive than NZ ones are the certifiably-insane minibus drivers of Soweto in SA.
Oct 27 10 3:24 pm
Dear MacDoctor, did you get your drivers license with:
1. A BAC of .00; or
2. A BAC of .08; or
3. A BAC somewhere in between.
If you weren’t tested with the BAC level you are claiming to be safe, then you only have a claim of performance rather than a proof of performance.
Being in a position to lose control of your vehicle and kill – say up to 10 people? – in any one instance, with some ease, then a claim to performance doesnt cut it.
So Juice Up Doc and volunteer for a retest. You may be surprised how your actual performance doesn’t match what your alcohol affected ego and confidence level is proclaiming!
This too was the experience here in Australia on bringing 0.05 here. Hoon after Hoon was taken out to the race track, running their cars through a test course, then juiced up to 0.05 and the collisions were fun to watch.
What was funnier was how the Hoons could not believe their own performance level. It didn’t compute. They had to do it again and again!
This is a known effect of alcohol – a disconnect between ambition and ability kicks in.
On cultural change – you are right and you are wrong.
Cultural change is needed as is a drop to 05.
Here in OZ, the controversy is based on whether the BAC should be zero for all drivers. Or a couple of points up from zero to deal with medicines or accidental intake.
Some classifications of drivers and operators of machines other than cars have to maintain a BAC of .00 at all times.
Cultural change is best effected by spending around 8 dollars in 10 of an extensive budget on media campaigns, plus associated in school campaigns, along with 2 dollars in 10 spent on Random Breath Testing campaigns.
The Hard Legal Edge brought to the party via RBT and large and painful penalties makes the messages of the media campaign bite.
Also, having pay for use Breathalyser machines in pubs and venues has been found to be a moderating influence in areas backing their use. Mainly NSW and country Vic.
The main idea being, that cultural change programs need large scale budgets, RBT via Booze buses and small police teams.
During the last AFL grand final, with 100,000 supporters in the MCG, the whole carpark was breathalysed as promised. I think 1 or 2 were caught over the limit. The year before – none tested blew 05.
Such has been the cultural change.
Every Hoon/Bogan in Victoria knows what BAC 05 is and what will happen to them if caught, and moreover, most believe in the efficacy of the whole exercise.
Educational campaigns not associated with a hard legal edge, penalties – bite – are notorious for NOT working.
They are usually favoured by Big Liquor and their acolytes operating in political parties, media, sporting organisations and the like.
If Big Liquor backs a campaign you’re interested in. Beware, its probably safe and non challenging to Big Liquor.
Look up the Pedestrian 08 Campaign and check out the thinking behind it.
regards
Mike Cockburn
The Pedestrian 08 Campaign
Melbourne, Australia
Oct 27 10 7:04 pm
Mike:
I took my test sober, as you well know. This does not obviate the fact that my impairment at 0.05% and 0.08% are not that different. Nor does it obviate the fact that the only safe BAC is the one when I took my license i.e. zero. As I have said in the post above and in other posts – there is a case to be made for a zero (or near zero) limit. There is no convincing case to be made for arbitrary limits at any other point – 0.03%; 0.05%; 0.08% or even 0.1%. All of these are people who are driving impaired.
You might try and argue that someone with a BAC of 0.03% is less impaired that someone with a BAC of 0.08%. While this is superficially true, the disinhibitory effect of alcohol kicks in after a single drink. This means that judgement is impaired long before reflexes start to go – and you are not going to improve that by dropping the limit, unless the drop is to zero.
I read through your stuff on pedestrian BACs. I suspect it will be unworkable (though I confess a sneaky liking for the idea!). Frankly, we are having a hard enough time keeping people with BACs above 0.08% out of cars, without trying it on with pedestrians. Having said that, I like many of the interventions you have mentioned and think that NZ should certainly try them. Then perhaps we will not have twice the number caught with BAC of 0.08% than OZ catches with BACs of 0.05%
Oct 28 10 11:48 pm
Mac!
Thanks for your comments.
Do every thing you can to lower the limit to 0.05.
It’s a more reasonable line in the sand that 0.08.
Like any line in the sand, its arbitrary and imperfect.
From recall, at 05, you have twice the likelihood of accident, death or injury than at 00, where – I agree – you should be.
At 08, driving a car, you have five times the likelihood!
Let me know if I’m wrong, that is my recall. But, I’m pretty sure I’m correct.
From a pedestrian point of view, 08 gives you like 05, the point where you have doubled your chances.
In Oz, 30% of dead pedestrians were over 0.05.
I’ve repeatedly asked for the stats over 0.08, but the authorities haven’t bothered to answer my requests.
I’m not expecting much difference, because, the characteristic of drunk, dead pedestrians, is that they tend to be a lot over 05.
Other BAC levels have been quoted as the likely trigger points for alcohol related violence. 0.11 to 0.13.
My argument is, you are currently running a BAC limit for motorists, that is genuinely unsafe for a pedestrian, let alone a motorist.
The thing NZ appears to lack is a tie up of major politicians, media, elite level social groups, all pushing in the same direction. This is costing lives.
If you are not seeing prime time ‘Drink Drive – You’re a Bloody Idiot’ kind of ads every night, especially in lead up to festive occasions, followed up by Police with an Aggressive Belief in Busting Drunks, in the media, in your face, then again, this is costing lives.
If any police were quoted dismissing 0.05 as a concept, they would be sacked. It would be career suicide. Unless you were asking for the limit to be lowered.
Mac, do all you can to lower the limit.
Regards
Mike
Mike Cockburn´s last [type] ..Binge Drinking Primary School Students
Oct 30 10 9:28 pm
Dear Mike
Talk about generalisation, try getting some real facts together. Everyone, except you it seems, knows that pedestrians, .take no responsibility for their own actions and if they have had a few drinks are even worse, you only have to look at the number of teenagers killed in London because they are preoccupied with ipods or cell phones. Factor that into your numbers.
The real issue is not the difference between .5 and .8 but the fact that NZ drivers are impatient, follow too close and have no idea how to react in an emergency. I have cut many drunk people of cars and I can tell you they were not just a little over the limit, they were plastered. A decrease in the limit will not stop those people. A repeat drunk driver (2nd time) more than twice the limit should be jailed for the same time attempted murder would receive.
You are just another person that blindly accepts facts and figures published by authorities that have other agendas. If they were really serious they would triple the number of police cars on the road or construct medium barriers on all our open roads, but the acceptable cost of life is not that high.
Regards
Lance
Oct 29 10 4:01 pm
0.05 will increase deaths by 5-20 drink drivers in NZ per year extensive analysis by Candor Trust has revealed, and MoT acknowledges in the regulatory impact statement for safer journeys that fewer deaths (than the rare ones existing) in the 0.05-8 band will be replaced with more sobre driver deaths. Thats because they well know that alcohol was not the deciding factor in these peoples fatals, so we will have fewer on the road at that level but the same guys will still die. Also it is just a big propaganda nonsense that benefits of 0.05 are seen elsewhere.
Read the literature – oh well here’s a summary, and bear in mind our enforcing and A and D culture is most like Victorias =’s more deaths will result from 0.05 not less. In Victoria 0.05 doubled numbers of deaths over 0.05 in 20-30′s within 3 years (15-30 in just 3 years say TAC – wow and the Herald wants this) !!!!!!!!
All the countries listed as switching to 0.05 did so not based on evidence, but after pressure exerted by the World Bank notes a telling Canadian review of limit impacts. An Irish Road Safety Authority report on blood alcohol levels (BAC’s) 2007, said “the research on reducing the level from 0.8 to 0.5 has not seen the expected decline in alcohol-related collisions”. And from the in depth Canadian Government review “Even if 0.5 caused behaviour change, which requires drivers to know limits and how to stay under, when studies show most can’t name their local limit or will switch to drugs, the behaviour being supposedly widely prevented is of itself simply not likely often harmful”.
The 0.08 UK, NY and Utah are the safest places from drunk drivers in the world. Victoria with 0.05 has about the same rate, but 0.05 was initially disastrous. A 44% rise in offences when Victoria brought in 0.05 produced a doubling of drink driving deaths in 21-40’s over the first 3 years, and only RDT in 2004 bought things back on kilter. South Australia drug tests so it isn’t comparable and Dutch reductions in drink driver numbers were attributed to other developments, particularly breath or drug testing, Queensland experienced no sustained effect, the much cited NT drop short term was in a place with yearly tolls around 10 so can hardly be assigned statistical significance. Switzerland moved to penalising 0.5 in 2005. In 2000 alcohol had factored in 19% of fatal crashes and today they estimate alcohol is a contributing factor in 30% of serious accidents.
France, Slovakia & others uptaking 0.5 harm has remained high. Hence Slovakia and France have also just bought in mass random drug testing. Odd how Safer Journeys report only elects to note that 0.05 dented stats in one tiny French locale – scratching were they? Several Canadian Provinces now have 24 hour suspensions for 0.5 but high alcohol related harm and Spain has 0.5 with high road trauma. ALAC and MoT hype 0.05 citing indirect benefits from reduced average BACS, but this was found in Aus to be only an effect of 1-2 year duration.
Country experience shows 0.05 =’s high trauma – 0.08 lowest in the world. So clearly the Herald is focusing on a red herring at the expense of real solutions, Had to laugh at the Editors meathead statement at select committee that because we have an average of 4 deaths yearly bwetween 0.05-8 adding a limit drop fine would save at least 4 lives. Doh – big mouth, no research and a 2 year olds sophistication in that argument. That’s like saying that banning women drivers will reduce the toll proportionate to female population size. Get a life Herald before your misdirected campaign ups kills.
Oct 29 10 7:19 pm
Great analysis Jim. Must say, though, that I see the ’2 drinks max’ campaign as being entirely arbitrary and it may actually encourage some people to have an extra drink if they are driving. Also, with impairment likely to be an issue even after a single drink, I would have preferred to focus on a designated driver message rather than condoning a couple of drinks. It must be the case that, for some, 2 drinks is 1 or 2 drinks too many. Can we really trust people to know what a standard drink really is? You are also more disinhibited and perhaps more likely to have one further drink after having already had 2. Anyway, you are absolutely right about looking at proper evidence rather than using emotional soundbites.
Oct 29 10 11:24 pm
“There is also good evidence that countries that have adopted the lower BAC limits have improved their road fatality rates. It is therefore not clear whether the drop in fatalities was due to the campaign, the extra police or due to the drop in BAC.”
Is it not stunningly obvious that we should do the same? Lower the Bac, improve inforcement with a campaign to make people aware they are more likely to be caught. Its intuitively obvious I would drink less or get a taxi. It would be cheaper. This is clearly non-intuitive for you.
“..drivers near the 0.08% limit instinctively tend to drive more carefully ” Are you suggesting we should have a few and drive more carefully? Is this your experience? What evidence is there for this?
Oct 29 10 11:35 pm
It is my experience that the phrase “Intuitively Obvious” is often synonymous with “Not True”. Unlike you, I do not wish to trample on my fellow New Zealander’s liberties without at least having reasonable evidence (as opposed to pure supposition) that I will be doing them more good than harm.
Oct 31 10 8:55 pm
This is a good indicator of increasing BAC levels leading to increased accidents:
What we do know, unequivocally, is that when the blood alcohol content of drivers increases, the risk of them being in a fatal crash increases exponentially. A driver aged 30 or over who has consumed a couple of drinks (blood alcohol level of 50mg) is 5.8 times more likely to crash than a sober driver but if that driver keeps on drinking and gets behind the wheel with a blood alcohol limit of 80mg – the current limit – they are 16.5 times more likely to be involved in a crash causing death.
The numbers are even more chilling for a driver aged 20 to 29 who drinks to the current drink-drive limit. They are 50 times more likely to kill you or themselves on the road than a sober driver.
>> straight out of your Herald.
I dont think you or some of your readers realise that lowering the BAC Limit IS Part of a campaign for change.
That is, you need to spend up on publicity and education, reinforced by Random Breath Testing.
The average driver needs to BELIEVE that they WILL be caught, lose licences, lose a lot of money and for repeat offenders, will definitely go to gaol.
You only get that via a dedicated government/media effort.
In this situation, you seem to have the media pushing in correct direction, but, your government appears in thrall of Big Liquor.
Tell me if I’m unfair?
So what works is not law alone, nor television publicity alone, but both used together till you get the result.
Regards
Mike Cockburn
Mike Cockburn´s last [type] ..Under 21 alcohol restriction saves ER – Emergency Department traumas
Oct 31 10 10:57 pm
Not sure where you get your stats from. The WHO data can be found in my blog post Blood Alcohol. That data shows a relative crash risk of 1.5 at 0.05% and a relative risk of 2.8 at 0.08%. That’s 50% more likely at 0.05% and three times as likely at 0.08%. A very far cry from 16.5 times as likely.
A sober 21 year old has a similar relative risk to a 30 year old with a BAC of 0.08%. As no one is suggesting increasing the driving age to 25, despite that fact that it would do more for the road fatality rate, I can only conclude that the drive to reduce the legal BAC is entirely arbitrary.
And can we leave the “in thrall to Big [insert industry name here]“ rhetoric elsewhere? Nobody for a moment believes our politicians have been bought by any industry at all. And any industry is perfectly entitled to lobby government, including both the anti-alcohol lobby and the hospitality industry. This is called democracy.
Oct 31 10 11:37 pm
Mac, quote is from todays Herald.
Alcohol is a very special commodity.
An ‘industry’ making money out of addiction needs to be treated like the anti-social creatures they obviously are.
Politicians need money obviously, and you’d be naive not to think that decisions are done without the best interests of Jo Public in mind due to that money – ill gotten via the sale/marketing of this addictive, toxic, carcinogenic substance.
I just picked my 15 yr old up from a party where a whole bunch of c.15 year olds had been served alcohol. You should go to gaol for that.
I flicked the tele past the Rugger, Aust v. Eng, and to the shame of Australia, the 10 year olds who follow Rugger here, have got the message, in prime time, non adult viewing time the ‘VB – The Australian Beer’ or some such nonsense.
So keep working the angles Mac, it wont be long before the 10 year olds are rolling up at ER daily. ..
Really have no idea what your argument is.
There is less chance of death / injury – stronger safety benefit at the lowest BAC level achievable.
We’ve proved that here.
Mike Cockburn´s last [type] ..Under 21 alcohol restriction saves ER – Emergency Department traumas
Nov 1 10 12:35 am
The figures Mick quotes on BAC related risk are ones cooked by MoT in its non independent study of nightime bac risk by Frith and Keall. The NZ figures are higher because of high polydrugging contaminating the sample as proved in the 5 year ESR deceased driver study in which half our dead drivers who had drunk used cannabis. The figures therefore refer to bac related risk and are misrepresented by the Herald as such to lead people ro false conclusions about correct interventions. The smple contamination is serrious because thc doubles BAC related risk (Drummer 2004 and many other studies). The relationship betwen bac and risk is far morer complex than policy writers realise which is why the achieved reduction in drunk driver prevalence by 2010 has only returned a 4% drop in drink related deaths not 8% as the science of the 1980s predicted.