New Ontario Alcohol Level Law 0.05

[AdRath]

Maybe you'll want to read up some more on the science.

The major findings to A Review of the Literature on the Effects of Low Doses of Alcohol on Driving-Related Skills can be found at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/inju...Discussion.htm

You can also read the whole thing starting at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/inju...9028/Title.htm

The numbers coming out of the science might surprise you.
.

The study your quote (first link... didn't have time to read the second one) does not define 'impairment'. It assumes that every driver from age 16-60 has the same level of motor function which is obviously untrue.

At 0.5 it states that Cognitive Tasks, Psychomotor Skills, Choice Reaction Time are effected but it doesn't state by how much. And most importantly it doesn't state that it prevents one from driving (it doesn't take 100% motor skills to drive as demonstrated by 80yr olds passing their license test and having half the motorskills of a younger person). It just states that it made some difference.

All the impairments with low levels of alcohol can also be demonstrated with lack of sleep or distraction from within a car and many of the other things considered 'normal' and not significant enough to impare driving function to the point of being a hazard. It looks to me from the study that the level of impairment which causes one to be a hazard because it can't be compensated for by experience, speed, surroundings etc is .1 BAC. Which is what I stated earlier. Maybe reading the second link would bring validation but nothing from the 1st link demonstrates to me that a person cannot operate a motor vehicle with a BAC less than .08 which is the legal limit and something I don't have an issue with.

I so have a problem with increased punishment for someone driving within a BAC level below the legal limit. The science doesn't support lowering the limit and punishing someone with a license suspension for coming close to committing a crime is just plain stupid.

Don't mistake the lack of resistance from joe average making something right. The average person feeds on media bites from special interest groups without looking into the facts themselves. Remember at one time people thought the world was flat because a few select people said it was and people were scared to go against the status quo. It didn't make it so.

I stand by my stance that low levels of BAC does nothing to stop the problem of serious drunk drivers which are the cause of a vast majority of accidents involving alcohol. Law makers are pandering to powerful special interest groups with agendas far beyond what they claim to stand for rather than tackling the issues that truly effect the safety of Ontarians. Why have law makers done nothing to address the real issue of habitual offenders well over the established legal limit who are the real problem with drinking and driving. Put those clowns in jail so they cannot drive again. Suspending a license or installing an interlock does not work for these guys. They are the real issue.

The numbers just don't warrant increased punishment for lower BAC. Like was said earlier if it ain't broke don't fix it.

[turbodish]

I so have a problem with increased punishment for someone driving within a BAC level below the legal limit. The science doesn't support lowering the limit and punishing someone with a license suspension for coming close to committing a crime is just plain stupid.

The numbers just don't warrant increased punishment for lower BAC. Like was said earlier if it ain't broke don't fix it.

That's just it. The numbers do support lowering BAC levels. You might have a problem with it, but so many recognized medical and transport professional organizations do not.

Several countries have reported studies indicating that lowering the illegal per se limit from .08 BAC to .05 BAC reduces alcohol-related fatalities (e.g., Australia, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, and France).

Laboratory studies indicate that impairment in critical driving functions begins at low BACs. Most subjects in these studies were significantly impaired at .05 BAC with regard to visual acuity, vigilance, drowsiness, psychomotor skills, and information processing compared to their performance at .00 BAC.

Leading medical, crash prevention, public health, and traffic safety organizations in the world support BAC limits at .05 or lower, including: the World Medical Association, the American and British Medical Associations, the European Commission, the European Transport Safety Council, the World Health Organization, and the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Please post if you have anything authoritative to refute the collective wisdoms of the World Medical Association, the American and British Medical Associations, the European Commission, the European Transport Safety Council, the World Health Organization, and the American College of Emergency Physicians, among others. You'll note that I haven't chosen to include MADD in that list.

[Rob MacLennan]

And my position is that if lower legal BAC levels can be supported by the science then politicians should bite the bullet and drop those levels, rather than penalizing people for NOT breaking the law, without giving them recourse to the justice system. It won't effect me either way, but it might lose a few politicians their jobs.

*EDIT* Ultimately it is the effectiveness of any measure that determines whether it should be used or not. From the International Center for Alcohol Policies:

http://www.icap.org/LinkClick.aspx?f...BY%3D&tabid=75

[AdRath]

It is also possible that so-called “hard core” drink-drivers and recidivist drink-drivers may be impervious
to the setting of BAC limits. Studies conducted in the United States and Canada (Simpson et
al.,1996; Mayhew et al., 199 found that 65% of all drinking driver fatalities and 72% of all tested
fatally injured drinking pedestrians had BACs over 1.5 mg/ml. This is almost twice the established
level in much of Canada and the USA, suggesting that these individuals might pay little attention to
a further tightening of the level. In addition, over 20% of all convicted drink-driving offenders have
prior drink-driving offenses. Such disregard for the established limit calls into doubt the efficiency
of minor changes to the permitted BAC level, at least for these groups of drivers.

This is the part I was trying to hit earlier. Legislators need to go after these individuals not increase punishment for coming close to breaking the law. And I agree with Rob if .05 is a true hazard on the roads then why not make that the legal limit? Obviously politicians and safety experts don't beleive it is a serious issue or they are just scared of losing votes.

[82Seca750]

Much of the rants in this thread represent emotion coming out of scared drinkers.

now that is hilarious

I guess all the rants in the HTA172 threads over the years are emotions coming from scared street racers eh?

if you can't comprehend the level of irresponsibilty in legislating roadside justice....then you really need to suffer dearly from an outta control cowboy

[AdRath]

now that is hilarious

No Kidding... And people who fight for privacy laws are just Terrorists too.

[Rob MacLennan]

At this point I think that thinking people should be seeing patterns in government, at all levels, involving the application of "sounds good but unproven results" laws.

It's easy to say that you want to take guns out of the hands of criminals, get drunk drivers off the street, or stop street racing. If you try to end the issues by taking guns out of the hands of properly registered owners, penalize much lower levels of alcohol consumption, or levying huge penalties for simple speeding and a host of other poorly defined actions, then you fail to accomplish your goals.

Then you have the big question: Do we actually HAVE the stated problem?

• Regarding the first I would say that we don't have a gun problem, we have a GANG problem. Other than gang related crimes, violent crime has been on a 25 year downward slide.
• Impaired operation of a vehicle causing injury or death is predominantly because of repeat offenders who are multiples over the legal limit, and will never respond to anything short of incarceration and forced de-tox.
• There have been a vanishingly small number of high profile incidents involving what was called street racing that were spun into reasons for serious action, but that in the end were merely aberrations; statistically insignificant.

Laws, especially those that curtail the freedom of the citizenry, should not be put in place simply because they sounded like a good idea at the time. If you infringe upon Charter Rights, but fail to accomplish your goals, then the law was an exercise in futility. Something is lost; nothing gained. The measure for justifying a breach of Charter Rights is that there is a clear benefit to the public at large, that outweighs the loss. In all cases the recent laws fail to meet that burden.

[mxs]

Well said.

The problem though is that the government is willing to lie about their numbers and thus proving their exercises to the public as success. How do you deal with that?

[Rob MacLennan]

Well said.

The problem though is that the government is willing to lie about their numbers and thus proving their exercises to the public as success. How do you deal with that?

Unfortunately in most cases they don't lie about the numbers, they don't say how those numbers were derived. What definitions were used? What criteria? What was the cut-off point? Were there other factors involved, that skewed the results?

[mxs]

Yeah, so let say they don't intentionally tell the whole story, which at the end is lying about their case, because it's not as bad as they made it to look to justify their cause.

Either way, how does society and public in general defend against that? Because they can keep doing that until .... ehm, election? But the new guys will most likely do the same (for the same reasons the current law makers do) .... how do you break such a chain of laws which do not serve the public better in the end?

[Rob MacLennan]

Yeah, so let say they don't intentionally tell the whole story, which at the end is lying about their case, because it's not as bad as they made it to look to justify their cause.

Either way, how does society and public in general defend against that? Because they can keep doing that until .... ehm, election? But the new guys will most likely do the same (for the same reasons the current law makers do) .... how do you break such a chain of laws which do not serve the public better in the end?

By being an informed voter and spending the time to do the research. By having advocacy groups to debunk the garbage that is spewed as fact. By being sceptical of any statement that is spoken in absolute terms.

[mxs]

If that's all the tools we have, I am pessimistic about our chances, aren't you?

[AdRath]

Wooley was on the news this morning saying that the Crash on Queen this morning involving a driver who was twice the legal limit over. (of course Wooley said it so it may or may not be true)

Again... nothing about this increased punishment targets the real problem which is people who scoff at existing laws already and are much over the existing limit. Lowering the bar serves no purpose but to pad the stats and appear as it they are making a difference. Sad.

[GSPLover]

Again... nothing about this increased punishment targets the real problem which is people who scoff at existing laws already and are much over the existing limit. Lowering the bar serves no purpose but to pad the stats and appear as it they are making a difference. Sad.

Chaaaa Ching!!!!!

[Rob MacLennan]

If that's all the tools we have, I am pessimistic about our chances, aren't you?

Yep.

Wooley was on the news this morning saying that the Crash on Queen this morning involving a driver who was twice the legal limit over. (of course Wooley said it so it may or may not be true)

Again... nothing about this increased punishment targets the real problem which is people who scoff at existing laws already and are much over the existing limit. Lowering the bar serves no purpose but to pad the stats and appear as it they are making a difference. Sad.

Appropriate punishment has an effect; it takes offenders off the road and puts them in jail. Increased punishment, by way of casting a wider net, doesn't.