UKC

I had a slightly strange experience this evening. I went to a local quiz night to raise money for a local hospice. The format involves being on a team with complete strangers. One of the answers was Barbara Castle, and at the mention of her name the woman next to me said to the whole table, 'She was the one who introduced breathalysers, the bitch.'

A general discussion followed from which it was clear that amongst this demographic - 70-year-old suburban Tories, essentially - there is still an element which bitterly resents the introduction and/or policing of drink-driving laws and sees it as part of Labour's plans to take away everyone's basic freedoms.

Very odd. A bit like listening to the NRA talking about the notion of restricting the supply of assault weaponry to the mentally ill.

Is this a known thing? I've never come across it before.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

It was the thin end of a wedge. Gastonides came along next with a speed camera. Bastard.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

"Among this demographic"? OFFS, really?


Wouldn't it be more accurate to say;
"Influenced by my own biases, and based on a microscopically small sample of people who I do not know, I've made an unsupported and politically inane point up for you lot to debate"

In reply to Big Ger:

Pot. Kettle. Black.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Pop fact: My dad designed the breathalyser

In reply to Big Ger:

27 likes! I didn't realise that there were so many 70-year-old suburban Tories who resent the drink driving laws on here. But '70-year-old suburban Tory' isn't very scientific is it? What about favourite paper? Daily Mail? And views on capital punishment.? And brexit? (I know, I'm just a stirrer)

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Sadly there are plenty of people from all walks of life - though I think the age thing probably correlates as for my generation drink driving has never been widely acceptable - who see drink driving laws as a draconian restriction of their civil liberties.

It just seems bizarre to me, and probably aligns with thinking of driving as a right rather than a priviledge, if there's one time when it's ok to restrict someone's civil liberties it's when they've made a conscious decision to reduce their ability to use them responsibly.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

I suppose it depends on how much you think it's acceptable to restrict reasonable behaviour for the greater good. People can drive reasonably safely after a couple of drinks. People can own guns responsibly...

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

I think folk should have a magnetic lamp that they put on the roof of their car, with a lazy flashing purple light to indicate to other drivers that you've had a few, but you're taking it easy, and you're going home.

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:


Not sure how comfortable I am with the idea of driving 'reasonably safely' after a couple of drinks, when the alternative is to drive 'safely' after no drinks.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Amongst the older generation drinking and driving was a way of life and as long as you were so er enough to get the keys in the door you fine to drive.
Obviously un Thinkable for most of society today.

Maybe in 30 years time you will be the old boy in the pub calling the designers of speed cameras bastards when the young ones around you with GPS speed limited cars are shocked at your attitude to a reality that they have grown up with and know no different.

In reply to Dax H:

Probably more jcm will be bemoaning the complete ban on human drivers with automated cars being the devil's work!

In reply to Tall Clare:
Mrs Num Num never drives safely. Drunk or sober.

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:


Fixed that for you.

In reply to The New NickB:


Please quote any equivalence in my posts which you may like too.


http://rationalwiki.org/w/images/2/2f/Tumbleweed.gif

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:

I rarely drink (maybe a couple of pints once a year) and after those two pints I'm in no way, shape or form fit to drive. Although not drunk Im definitely beyond the point that I should be in a position to be legally allowed to control a car.
Then other people will drink ten pints and still appear sober. The law needs to aim at my end of the scale rather than the 25stone heavy drinker.
I stick by my comment that most people are morons. Every day we all see other drivers texting on there phones or talking with their phones up to their ears. Even though pretty much every phone made in the last 5-10 years has a built in hands free facility.
And who can honestly say that you haven't quickly glimpsed at your phone, grabbed something out of your glovebox or rummaged about in the footwell for something.
We've all been guilty of it, even though we know the results can be fatal (or at least get points on our licence) ergo on the whole we are mostly all morons.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

There´ s worse, she introduced the general 70mph speed limit as well!

In reply to JJL:


The bastard!!!!



Just kidding it was a good thing.

In reply to jimtitt:

That was a good idea considering how awful many of the cars of the time handled. Although many things in automotive engineering have not progressed as much as I might have hoped, it is certainly true that modern cars are pretty much universally stable at speed. Where we are now with vehicle stability makes the idea of a 80mph motorway limit quite a practical proposal.

Most European cars of the 1960s, though not quite in the American league of 'unsafe at any speed', were nevertheless, not happy in a corners or cross-winds at anything much above 50 mph.

The mix of poorly understood damping technology, bad aerodynamics and badly designed suspension geometry meant that one-car deadly events with drivers just losing it on straight roads were common-place. Over FOUR TIMES the current UK road death rate occurred in the mid-1960s (peace-time all-time peak). I would estimate that the elimination of speed as a dominant primary cause of serious accidents was probably achieved by the 1980s and happened alongside the battle against drink driving.

With those battles largely won we are having a problem bringing focus onto accident causes that can save a significant number of lives. Thus the road death figure has flattened out at just over 1700 per year. Both here and across the rest of Europe, highway and automotive engineering continues to provide most of lifesaving measures that have brought improvements during the last thirty years. Much of that is a result of legislation at European level.

These are the safest roads in the world. Damn anyone who still thinks drinking and driving is OK. Damn the successive governments that have ignored evidence of how to reduce deaths and injuries still further.

In reply to deacondeacon:

I agree with all that. I was just pointing out that in regulating drinking driving, you ban some reasonable behaviour. People have different views on the extent it's acceptable to do that for the greater good.

In reply to Tall Clare:

I mean reasonably as in safe enough that it is reasonable to drive, as compared to other things that we as a society think it's acceptably safe to do. (Note: no driving is completely safe and many things other than drink affect how safely we drive.)

In reply to Jim Fraser:


The cars are far safer and far more stable but the meat bag behind the wheel isn't, if anything they are worse than they were in the past due to all the distractions like phones, hands free calling, sat nav and cd players, then factor in the ever increasing amount of cars on the road and upping the limit is a recipe for disaster, if anything it needs dropping to cope with the volume of traffic.
I use the manages section of the m62 a lot between Leeds and Huddersfield and its rare that it runs above 60mph and is often down to 50mph, now I don't know any actual figure's but it certainly seems that there are far less accidents than there used to be, it was at least once a week I would be stuck in an accident tailback but now it's more like once a month.

Also the environmental impact, every vehicle I have ever owned with 1 exception has done significantly more mpg at 60 rather than 70 to 80.
As an example my bike currently does 45mpg at 80 and 65mpg at 60 (it's in the high 70s at 50 through roadworks) my van does 700 miles to the tank if I keep it at 60 and I'm lucky to 600 miles if I do 70 to 80.
The one exception was my land-rover, that would only do 45mph downhill with a tail wind and the miles counter didn't work.

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:


So how much alcohol do you think is reasonable?

In reply to deacondeacon:


Here be the problem, personally I say zero.
There are too many discrepancies between people to set any limit other than either very low or zero.

I have not drunk for 28 years but I did knock back a whisky a couple of years ago and I certainly knew about it, it effected me far more than 5 or 6 pints would have done when I did drink.

My dad on the other hand would down 4 or 5 doubles every lunchtime then drive back to work and use machine tools, he never had an accident either driving or at work, his natural state was half pissed all the time.

In reply to Dax H:

I completely agree with you, and for the same reasons.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

I have never once been breathalysed, I would not mind at all as I'm TT, but although I have been stopped by the police a few times, and I even ran a van into a low bridge( and wrote it off) , and the buggers still never breath tested me.

In reply to Jim Fraser:

I think the insurance market has also significantly cut road deaths by making costs incredibly high for very young men. Thsse days the main cause of serious problems I see on the roads are distracted drivers (usually on a mobile) and the combination of slow road blockers and the overtaking blockers behind them on standard 2 lane A roads causing frustrated and/or dangerous overtaking (hence perhaps our most dangerous highways from the stats). Drink is still involved in way too many fatal accidents overall.. form people I know breathalised after 2 pints who were OK goodness knows how much some of these folk are drinking.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

I live in semi-rural Leicestershire and such Slaughtered Lamb/Deliverance type attitudes are quite common.

You should get out more. ;-p

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:
Hello, btw.
Long time no see.

In reply to krikoman:




I guess the next step is for insurance companies to give discounts for those using a breath analyser connected to the car ignition
( that recognises your breath and so knows who's driving - as opposed to anyone else that you might get to blow into it for you)
But I guess people would try collecting their clean breath in balloons to get round that.

In reply to birdie num num:


In our very rural location your suggestion is employed, the only difference being car is replaced by tractor, quad, horse, mule. Sometimes forget to switch the lamp on.

In reply to Jim C:


In the USA there are some areas which use that approach for convicted drink drivers. They get the licence back after a certain time but have to carry out a breath test each time. Think it has various countermeasures such as taking photos each time to check if they are cheating.

In reply to KevinD:
Apparently there's also a legal requirement in France now that every vehicle with more than 9 seats is fitted with an ignition-linked breathalyser system. It made it uneconomic for us to buy a second-hand minibus as it would cost too much to retro-fit. Strangely though there's no requirement to actually use it!

Edited for spelling.

In reply to The New NickB:


Still waiting Nick, don't let yourself down now.

In reply to Big Ger:

The terrible sea lion strikes!

In reply to deacondeacon:

For the legal limit?

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:

Yes

In reply to davidbeynon:


Sea Lions you say???

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018503003

In reply to deacondeacon:

Let's just go for a quick sobriety test, task related, rather than a blood alcohol limit that's the same for upright teatotalers vs everyone else?

In reply to Sir Chasm:


Yes, good idea. Please can it not be opening a new carrier bag though? Because I can't even do that sober.

In reply to bouldery bits:

I'm not sure that you should be able to pick the test after you've been pulled over. Anyway, carrier bags are expensive now.

In reply to deacondeacon:

I don't think you've understood what I've written.... I'm happy with current limits.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Why the suprise ? Surely you are aware of the dislike of speed cameras. Is there any difference ?

In reply to bouldery bits:
Yay!

A pox on all marine mammals!

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

When I was a kid the guy who ran the local fruit and veg shop used to drive to Covent Garden everyday at 2am to fill a lorry with stuff and then sent the day delivering it to schools.

He said he gave up drinking entirely when the breathalyser was introduced because he was so worried about his business, I think drinking was a large part of his social life before that.

Easy to see why someone like that might not love it's introduction, plus the penalty was thought harsh for what people deemed a misdemeanor.

Apparently in Germany they can breathalyse you on a pushbike, can see that being unpopular here too.

In reply to Tall Clare:



In Scotland, and several other territories, we have demonised having a small amount of alcohol in your system while accepting a wide range of other debilitating and distracting situations that have a greater effect.

Fatigue is a very serious problem and we do very little about it other than do stupid nit-picking legal attacks on truck and bus drivers who make honest mistakes.

Prescription drugs are a problem and there appears to be no appetite for doing anything about that.

Distractions are a very serious problem. Although we pretend to upset about mobile phones and there is some enforcement on that, we are only making a tiny dent in the problem. These distracting effects from cell phones, coffee cups, companions, CDs and catalepsy are a HUGE problem and are killing or injuring thousands of people each year but all we can do is breathalyse and ruin the lives of people with such a tiny amount of alcohol in their system that it is unlikely to have a significant effect on their performance.

At the same time, we do not have the guts to do the things that would tackle continued habitual drink driving. What exactly is wrong with a couple of traffic cops outside a pub car park? If we are going to take drink driving seriously then that should be normal. Lowering the limit does nothing to catch habitual drink drivers.


UK road death and injury.
Flattened out at about 1700 deaths and about 22000 serious injuries per year during the last four years. So the 50 year period of cuts in road deaths may be over.
If those figures are to drop further then REAL WORKABLE IDEAS ARE NEEDED, not stupid administrative tweaks.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Your question was presumptuous, and did not recognise the cultural differences of town versus country and risks thereabouts.
Driving offences should be prosecuted based on effect rather than cause.
Whether one is fixing the mascara, changing the CD, lighting a fag, driving like a moron, sober, driving drunk or under drugs, whatever, is irrelevant.
The effects may be first degree (death), second degree (serious injuries) or third degree (minor inconvenience).
So as Mr Fraser stated, there are many reasons for bad driving and the legal system should mirror those, and prosecute proportionately.
Your colleagues who railed against the breathalyser were not necessarily suburban Tories or aged cretins, but were merely recognising that obvious fact.
DC.

In reply to winhill:

Apparently in Germany they can breathalyse you on a pushbike.

If you can't drive faster than a copper on a pushbike, then you fully deserve to be breathalysed!

In reply to Jim Fraser:

Fortunately self-driving cars are on their way, at which point all these issues will become moot. The sooner the better.

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:


Sorry, reading back through the posts I wasn getting my point across concisely.
There is a legal limit at the moment and the problem with it is, is that some people can have a couple of pints and feel nothing from it, could go and finish their day at work, or could happily drive in safety. Whereas there's others (like me) who could have a pint or two, drive out of a pub car park and wrap my car round a tree, or worse.
That's fine, I understand that I'm in no fit state to get behind the wheel so I won't, but other people will have so many other variables and will often make a poor judgement on wether they are safe to drive.

In reply to Jim Fraser:


What's the alternative? Rely on self discipline alone? People are appalling judges of their own competence at the best of times, let alone when their judgement is further impaired by drugs. Surely zero tolerance is the only sensible approach.


I would welcome any reliable means of testing when someone is too fatigued to get behind the wheel, or continue driving, but I don't know what form that could take. I cringe whenever I read proud posts on UKC about how they drove 12 hours from Cornwall to Skye or whatever for a Winter hit.

In reply to David Martin:


When driving home from a pub totally bladdered, to all intents and purposes, most cars already are self-drive.

In reply to planetmarshall:


Depends on how you define zero, what's the limit of your tests ability to detect alcohol? - it's reasonable to picks level that will not affect the driving of the average person, its reasonable to pick a level that won't affect the lower 90th percentile.


Probably active monitoring of the driver by the vehicle - but at that point you may as well go for self driving cars. I think that the sort of interventions likely to be able to improve human performance further are very difficult to apply to what are in effect 'lone workers' a lot of the time.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Some folk on uck also advocate that parking wardens are a good idea.
Is this a known thing? I've never come across it before.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

Zero is tricky. I know someone who failed a breath test in Sweden because he had just used the windscreen wipers and had winter screenwash.

Fortunately the police let him retake it 5 minutes later and he came up negative.

In reply to Big Ger:

Sorry, I've been away. Are you suggesting that you don't do the following:

"Influenced by my own biases, and based on a microscopically small sample of people who I do not know, I've made an unsupported and politically inane point up for you lot to debate"

The Brexit referendum period must have been a complete figment of my imagination. I've got to say that is a relief!

In reply to davidbeynon:

Eh, you shouldn't be drinking that stuff

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Well I'm impressed by her memory at 70. I certainly couldn't remember who introduced the breathalyser.

In reply to Removed User:

It's an acquired taste I'll grant you.

In reply to JJL:


One of the developers of the breathalyser was reputed to live in one of the massive waterfront houses on the Menai strait - next door to friends where we used to stay occasionally.

In reply to deacondeacon:


Understood you the first time! As I said, I agree and am all for drink drive limits and breathalysers. But I don't mind penalising reasonable behaviour (eg your 25 stone man) for the greater good. Other people have more of a problem with that.

In reply to Dave Cumberland:


It is precisely this 'cultural difference' nonsense that a standardised breathalyser test gets round. If there is a 'culture' of drink driving where you are the sooner its dealt with the better.

In reply to sebastian dangerfield:


A big bloke may take more alcohol to get his blood alcohol level over the legal limit, but they don't ban you for drinking 3 pints of lager, they ban you for having a blood alcohol level higher than the limit.

In reply to GrahamD:


You have missed the point, and have no grasp of the point being made about cause and effect.

In reply to Dave Cumberland:

I get your point. Driving around Lakedistrict roads pissed up is OK because you have less chance of killing someone. It is wrong. The same standards have to apply to all roads and all drivers in the UK.

In reply to GrahamD:


I would like it if the penalties were equitable as well.
By this I do not mean identical bans/fines - these are manifestly not the same to all.

If you live/work in a major metropolis then losing your licence would be an inconvenience.
If you live/work in the countryside then losing your licence would probably mean loss of job and home.

A rich person losing a licence can afford taxis/chauffeur.
A poor person losing a licence is stuffed.

Too often society claims that penalties should all be the same, unfortunately what that really means is that well-off people in cities are realistically unaffected, whilst others can be pushed to the brink.
If that means a labourer gets fined £100 and a millionaire gets fined £1,000,000 or multi-millionaire even more (with graded fines throughout) then so be it - that at least would make the latter think about it.

In reply to fred99:

If you can't afford to lose your licence don't drink and drive. Simple really , no excuses. Oh I'm a farmer I should keep my licence - rubbish. People die because of the selfish actions of drink drivers. If it's more of an inconvenience to a country dweller then it's more reason not to do it, it's not a reason to give them a lesser sentence.

In reply to fred99:

Plenty of poor people in cities can't afford to lose their licence either. This isn't really a rural versus urban argument but is part of a wider one.

Irrespective of the pennalty, though, the crime is still the crime irrespective of who comitted it and where.

In reply to Dave Cumberland:

So if I choose to drive on right at 100mph while pissed but somehow everyone jumps out of the way in time and doesn't get hurt, that is just fine with you?

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


I'm surprised that judges frequently let people off when they argue that they need their licence for their job - particularly if it is a repeat offence. When I worked in a job where my licence was vital I was paranoid about not drink-driving or speeding, putting seat belt on, using mobile etc, etc. I'd have thought doing any of these when your job depends on you having a licence demonstrates that you don't have the character for the job. The case today of a lorry driver jailed for 10 years after killing a family while using a mobile shows that anyone who thinks differently is dangerous and shouldn't be driving.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


I agree but have some sympathy with the variable fine argument. If a fine is intended to deter, surely it should have the same impact for rich and poor, which implies variable levels depending how wealthy the person being fined is? £100 will be small change for some but a significant amount for others.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

The Swiss have just passed a law exempting retained fire fighters from being breathalysed if they are responding to a call.

In reply to MG:

I agree in principal and I think it's very valid for many many crimes but I'd have no sympathy whatsoever for someone saying 'it's not fair' if they drink drive.

In reply to Trangia:



Quick phonecall home. 'Set fire to the shed, there's a policecar following me'

In reply to MG:


Agreed, £100 fine means nothing to someone who is rich but going hungry for someone who is poor. But isn't that where points/loss of licence have more of an equal impact? Though I'll admit that someone who is rich can just pay for a chauffeur. Can't think of an answer to that.

In reply to Pekkie:


Very rich, I'd have said. Its a vanishingly small number of even well off people that could contemplate that.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

An ex-colleague's dad once found himself lying in the road after drink driving when it was allowed. The car he'd fallen out of was in the hedge 50yards further on.

Haven't Norway got means-tested motoring fines? How well do they work?

In reply to GrahamD:


You obviously don't understand the simple words "cause" and "effect"; and do not imply that anyone recommends the practices of your posting. No you don't get my point.
Especially in the light of today's tragic case with a trucker jailed for 10 years, not for driving drunk, but reading his phone while driving.
Show some brainpower.

In reply to Dave Cumberland:

Judgeing by your recent postings on climate change I think you accusing someone of not understanding 'cause' and 'effect' is rather rich.

In the case of someone jailed for causing death whilst driving using the phone: all that shows is that driving whilst impaired is dangerous so not exactly very illuminating. Jailing drivers causing death whilst impaired whilst drinking is not particularly uncommon and is generally not considered particularly newsworthy now - at least at national level.

In reply to David Martin:



Is that sarcasm?

Who is going to police self-driving cars? And who is going to pay for it? We are already at the point where they are giving any numpty with no qualifications a white hat and calling them a road policing officer. What happens when the decision making is hidden in 100000000 lines of code?

In reply to planetmarshall:



That's a rather tory authoritarian approach that achieves nothing but a a bigger budget deficit. The people who are between the English limit and the Scottish/European limit have very little chance of being a real problem. They are just the low hanging fruit the police can pick off without any hard work. The small number of really dangerous habitual drink drivers who are still out there unaffected.

As for zero tolerance, cars are awash with alcohols for coolant, screenwash and deicing so there are serious problems with making all detectable breath alcohol illegal. Again, you'd be engaging the justice system in expensive actions without any real results other than angering people and reducing their ability to engage in the economy.

In reply to The New NickB:



Yes, I am suggesting that that I do not do that.

Please quote me doing so, or withdraw the accusation.

It's just like all the times you've claimed three pebble slab was "V Diff max", and anyone who couldn't solo it was a big Nancy boy.

In reply to Dave Cumberland:


It's not as if no passenger of a drink driver has been killed in a rural setting, though...

In reply to Big Ger:

>Please quote me doing so, or withdraw the accusation.

I haven't indulged in the stroppy gob experience for quite a while. Lo n behold it's the same stuck record. Same old shite same denial same nastiness. Oh sorry am I stalking you?

In reply to aln:



It would appear you are.

Though your wonderfully eloquent, fact filled, on topic, posts are still as shining an example of rational debate as they ever were.

In reply to Big Ger:

>Though your wonderfully eloquent, fact filled, on topic, posts are still as shining an example of rational debate as they ever were.

Right back at you honey xx

In reply to Jim Fraser:

The same way other safety critical devices are policed - with extensive audit trails and quality control processes, including a version control history which explains why each and every line of code is there, who added it and when. Which is all a lot more than you can say for human decision making.

In reply to GrahamD:


If the question occurred during a round called 'Famous Barbaras' it might possibly have jogged your memory.

jcm

In reply to Jim Fraser:


No, it's someone looking forwards to the biggest societal change in 50 years or more.


Given the level of data collection on board self driving cars, the analysis of accidents and incidents is more like an aircraft investigation than a police RTA investigation. Indeed with the accidents with semi-autonomous cars in the USA, the manufacturer and the NTSB coordinate on the investigation.

Unlike a human crash where the lesson learned is often fatal, with an autonomous crash literally hundreds of people will pour over all the data and work to make a repeat accident less likely. That's already happening with partially autonomous features.

In reply to wintertree

Not only 'less likely' in terms of the car making the correct decision next time, but also 'less likely' in the sense that every single other autonomous car can be updated to not make that mistake again. Each car does not have to learn it's lessons individually like a human.

In reply to Jim Fraser:


I generally agree with your post but it's worth noting that a flatlining annual death/injury count against a rising trend in car/road road use still represents an effective cut in the rate at which people are hurt. We're still making gains but there are more of us mobile each year.
jk

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:


Read what I wrote, NOT your interpretation.
What I am saying is that for certain people, loss of licence is not a real punishment, and as for fines; as disposable income increases, they become irrelevant.

In reply to MG:


But if you were to drive over a group of pedestrians crossing the road - killing half a dozen of them, but only doing 29 mph, you would imply that's a minor offence in comparison ??

In reply to Pekkie:


Jail is a good one.

In reply to fred99:

That's quite some jump in logic!

In reply to fred99:


How do you jump to that? If I (or anyone else) was exercising reasonable care, then no. If drunk, or using a phone or whatever, then yes.

In reply to fred99:

I did read what you wrote, putting not in capitals doesn't really achieve anything! Maybe you'd like the death penalty for rich people just to make sure they're punished enough!

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:

I would like them to actually receive a penalty that meant something, rather than, for example, the equivalent fine to what they'd spent on wine at the meal the previous night.

In reply to fred99:

I agree. It should at least include the cost of thier after dinner port and cigar as well as the wine.

In reply to MG:

You seemed to be implying that doing 100 mph was the offence, when surely driving in a manner that endangered life was. When we put arbitrary (and emotive) figures such as 100mph (rather than 99 mph which doesn't sound as bad) as the reason for driving to be crazy, rather than the potential danger (the pedestrians who have to evade the vehicle) then it tends to regard one persons death as somehow less important than another's.

I've seen far too many people driving below the speed limit who appear to have absolutely no concern that others are also on the road, and who drive through red lights, across pedestrian crossings when pedestrians are crossing, and so forth.
They don't have to be drunk or on a mobile phone - too many "drivers" don't even seem to know what planet they're on.
If someone is killed by a driver doing 20mph, 70mph or 100mph, it's no different to them or their families - they're still dead.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Remind the silly cow, that whilst Castle introduced the breathalyser, it was Ken Clarke as a junior minister in the Heath government that had the legislation re-written so as to be workable.

In reply to fred99:

Well both are. We ban some actions (speeding, drink-driving etc) specifically because they are known to be so dangerous as to merit specific rules. On top of that there are catch all offences because we also expect people to take due care. No idea why you find this puzzling.

My comment was in reply to a poster who was implying anything goes unless you don't actually hit someone.