Joined on 07/01/2006
Abu Dhabi, UAE (from Sept 2010)
Posts 3,221
Re: Drunk in charge
Tony F Dordogne wrote:
It's not perverse at all, it's the law and that's all there is to it. If you're so drunk that you have to sleep it off in the back of the car, it's likely to be 24 hours before you're actually legally able to drive. So you wake up, still well over the limit but feeling better and decide to drive away when you're still over the limit.
To decide to "sleep it off' in the back of the car does not necessarily imply that you are "drunk". it may simply mean that you are aware that, because you have had a drink or two, you should not be driving, hence, as its late at night you decide its best to sleep somewhere, rather than walk the streets all night.
The obvious rejoinder will be "why not get a taxi home or even a bus?", possibly book into a local hotel for the night. As I remember NCE in my response above, none of those things was an option.
Sleeping in the car actually indicates (and indicated) a responsible attitude towards drinking and driving which should be praised, not pilloried.
In respect of waking up next morning, feeling better but still being over the limit, - how many people drink copiously in the comfort of their own home, safe in the knowledge that they are not going to drive anywhere, yet get up next morning and happily drive to work, smuggly unaware that they too are still over the limit. The only drivers that I know who are conscious of this aspect are professional truckers who regularly get stopped and tested in the morning after a night stop.
Joined on 05/12/2006
Mer du Nord/W of Cahors (46)
Posts 7,528
Re: Drunk in charge
Tony F Dordogne wrote:
Surely this isn't a debate about being drunk and driving but about drinking and driving?
I see nothing 'blindingly obvious' nor anything at odds with what I have said, in any case I think you are playing with words. I think for the majority the terms 'drunk and driving' and 'drinking and driving' are synonymous and both imply driving whilst over the prescribed limit.
Your personal view, influenced possibly by your occupation in a former life and a recent tragic experience which you wrote about here, seems to be that you drink or you drive but not both but that is not the law else the limit would be zero which we know it is not. Others therefore, myself included, mindful that there is a limit, and with respect to their own known tolerance of alcohol, gathered in my own case from having been stopped and bagged in UK on numerous occasions with wholly negative results, will exercise their choice to partake in moderation.
A glass of wine does not automatically turn an individual into a crazed lunatic !
Tony F Dordogne wrote:
It's not perverse at all, it's the law
and that's all there is to it.
Well it might be but is it your contention that the terms 'The Law' and 'perverse' are oxymoronic ?
From reading law reports in the Times 'perverse' is a word which crops up regularly in appeal decisions.
When everybody is saying the same thing it's usually time to ask if they know what they are saying.
Having taken the entirely responsible decision not to drink, then proceeded to ignore that decision and drink sufficient alcohol to exceed the legal limit, would a subsequent and equally responsible decision not to drive be at risk of a similar change of mind?
Winston Churchill got the UK through WW11 quite well.
04/07/2009, 10:03
Tony F Dordogne wrote:
![Wink [;-)]](/cs/images/emotions/wink.gif)
