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• Docjok
  Dec 5 10 10:20 pm

  

  Cough Mixture!! Are you MAD, man. That is nasty, dangerous, and in the wrong hands – potentially lethal stuff. Surely we need more public (and taxpayer funded ) education campaigns on the safe use of cough mixture, and the evils of driving whilst under the influence of said mixture. Come to think of it, is it safe to drive whilst feeling sick, coughing and/or sneezing. I am sure if there was sufficient (taxpayer funded) research the findings would be that it is in fact more dangerous than using a cell phone whilst driving, or listening to music, or in fact talking whilst driving.

  I am sure you will know from the current education campaigns (so ably provided by your taxes) that driving is a dangerous and life threatening business, and that maximum concentration, and complete use of all ones senses (unimpaired by boose, drugs, cough mixture, or distractions of any sort) are need to even come close to being safe.

  • MacDoctor
    Dec 5 10 11:03 pm

    

    I was planning on getting behind a campaign to ban thinking while driving. But then I realised I was too late…
• Bill Bennett
  Dec 6 10 12:27 pm

  

  Is there naturally-occurring alcohol in the blood? If not, can eating, say ripe fruit, create blood alcohol? And what is the margin or error in these tests?
  Bill Bennett´s last [type] ..Wikileaks- FIFA and journalism

  • MacDoctor
    Dec 6 10 10:22 pm

    

    These tests are quite sensitive. Most meters could test down to 0.01%. That would detect liqueur chocolates, cough mixture, mouth wash, inhaled glue (accidental, rather than recreational). Fermented fruits would probably have you in jail.

    You could even drink a half bottle of wine, take a taxi home and be arrested driving to work the following morning.

    All this and the death toll from drunk driving would barely budge – nearly all severe alcohol related injuries and deaths occur at a level of 0.1% or higher.
• Bill Bennett
  Dec 6 10 12:30 pm

  

  On another note, but not entirely unrelated, when I lived in Sydney I was at a cafe eating a lemon poppy seed muffin when a doctor friend pointed out I would test positive for heroin use for the next two or three weeks.

  So, you might ask, why would that bother any normal citizen? Well, many Australian employers now ask workers for a drug test before hiring.
  Bill Bennett´s last [type] ..Wikileaks- FIFA and journalism

  • MacDoctor
    Dec 6 10 10:25 pm

    

    The cheaper urine screens would be positive. You could aways ask to do an evidential ESR urine test which is much more accurate and would be negative.
• Nick Iversen
  Dec 7 10 5:30 pm

  

  If it is determined that above 20mg is unsafe to drive and if, indeed, cough mixture takes you up to 20mg then logic would produce the conclusion that taking cough mixture is unsafe for driving.

  This is true even if I substitute 80 for 20.

  So what’s your point – are you saying that because it is medicine then safety rules no longer apply?

  • MacDoctor
    Dec 7 10 6:46 pm

    

    are you saying that because it is medicine then safety rules no longer apply?

    Nope, I am merely saying that safety is a nebulous creature. No driving is safe. Including stone-cold-sober-driving-well-below-the-speed-limit-wearing-safety-belt-in-car-with-20-airbags driving. The real question is – should I be banned from driving after using cough mixture even though the gain in “safety” is probably non-existant or, at best, trivial? The same question can be applied to consuming alcohol.

    The debate on alcohol levels and driving has been hijacked by people who are attempting to find a “safe” level of alcohol to drive at. This does not exist because all levels of alcohol are unsafe. This the limit is dropped further and further in an attempt to find a non-existant safe level.

    What the debate should have been about is what level of risk are we willing to accept when drinking and driving?. That is a very different question to “what is safe?”

    • Bill Bennett
      Dec 8 10 10:46 am

      

      At the risk of sound pedantic, if you are sick enough to NEED cough medicine, your driving is likely to be riskier than someone who put a couple of beers away.

      A coughing fit at 100 kph could be fatal.

      I have sneezing fits in summer – possibly because of hay fever and I KNOW my concentration on the road is diminished.
      Bill Bennett´s last [type] ..Wikileaks- FIFA and journalism
    • Nick Iversen
      Dec 8 10 11:42 am

      

      Can’t argue with you there. Reducing a speed limit from 80 to 50 will have a dramatic effect on the road toll whereas reducing BAC from 80 to 50 may have no effect at all. There are more productive measures that we could be discussing instead of BAC.
• James McGehan
  Dec 9 10 12:19 pm

  

  The problem is that the ability to measure blood alcohol is not enough to predict driver behaviour. Since bad drivers sober routinely become really bad drivers when drunk perhaps we might encourage a bit more policing of bad driving and a bit less revenue gathering.
  While we are at it, let’s remember culprits we want to stop are drunk drivers and bad drivers ; leave the rest of us alone!
  James
• ZenTiger
  Dec 17 10 11:59 am

  

  Excellent news. I always react in dismay when they catch drink drivers who are only 5 times over the limit. I think “Only 5 times over the limit, why that doesn’t sound like much”

  Now, they will be 10 or 20 times over the limit, and I’ll instinctively know that is bad, bad, bad.

  /satire
  ZenTiger´s last [type] ..Drink Driving – Lets improve the outcomes

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