The BMA says drink driving should be brought to the European standard. But which one?

Chris Snowdon has the BMA right here:

“The BMA’s new president, Ian Gilmore, is Britain’s leading temperance activist so he won’t mind if more pubs close, but he gives the game away when he says he wants the limit reduced to almost nothing.

“This would not just stop people drinking anything before they drive, it would discourage them from drinking in the evening if they were going to drive in the morning.

“It is an anti-alcohol policy, not a road safety policy.”

But let us take the proposal seriously for a moment:

The British Medical Association (BMA) on Tuesday voted formally to lobby the government to bring England and Wales in line with the European average, with senior members describing the current threshold as “scandalous”.

But in line with which European standard? Yes, the drink drive limit in most of Europe is lower. The rate of deaths per billion miles driven - the only useful measure here - is higher in most of Europe than it is in the UK. No, really, page 53 here. Actually, by that only useful standard - for what else is a useful measure other than the number of deaths compared to the amount of travel? - the UK is about half the EU 17 average. So, umm, why isn’t everyone else having to follow our standards? You know, the efficient ones? The standards that actually achieve the task at hand?

Actually, we know what’s happening here. The doctors - as with so many people, so many times - are only looking at the one part of the system. The blood alcohol level. Britain’s punishments for breaching our (agreed, higher) limit are positively bloodcurdling compared to some of the penalties elsewhere. In fact, a lot of those 02 and 0.5 limits elsewhere are simple and mere fines - significant punishments like suspension of licence kick in with “aggravated” drink diving, at the same or higher rates than the UK’s limit.

It’s also true that you’re much more likely to get caught on the British roads than in many other places.

Finally, there’s the fact that the current limit is socially supported. There is zero sympathy for anyone caught under the current limits. If two pints at lunchtime mean you can get caught driving home at the end of the day then that societal support will vanish.

We have a system that works, the moving parts work together to give us, depending upon which measurement you choose, the third or fourth lowest drink driving death rate in Europe. As with any complex system fiddle with one part of it at the cost of possibly destroying the entire machine. #

The current British system works - why would we want to change it?