Drinking and driving : report of the Departmental Committee [on Drinking and Driving].

  • Great Britain. Departmental Committee on Drinking and Driving.
Date:
1976
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Drinking and driving : report of the Departmental Committee [on Drinking and Driving]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/92 (page 4)
    Roadside testing 1.14 We also had to consider the extent to which limitations on the powers of the police to stop and test drivers inhibit enforcement. If the police are to be efficient in detecting offenders, and their limited means are to be deployed to best effect in deterring those who might drink excessively before driving, they need discretion to test those who are most likely to be over the limit. The present categories do not allow the police to develop policies which are relevy- ant to drinkers’ behaviour, or to rely on their trained judgment in the individual situation: instead they must conform to an artificial ritual, in the knowledge that, if they deviate from this, a prosecution is likely to fail, however danger- ously unfit the suspect may subsequently prove to have been. 1.15 Thus both to remedy the defects in the law and to provide the basis for appropriate and effective enforcement of it, the present limitations on the power to stop and test drivers have to be removed (para. 5.16). We regard this as an essential and integral part of our proposals. ‘Random testing’ 1.16 Although it is a vital reform, removal of these limitations may be criticised as a return to the provisions of the original Road Safety Bill, which were opposed because many feared they would lead to ‘random testing’ without the suspicion of impairment. The Bill was certainly intended to transform a situa- tion in which only manifestly drunken drivers were arrested, into one in which those whose impairment was less obvious could be identified by a breath test. But the police were never likely to operate in a completely ‘random’ way, because this would have meant testing many drivers for every one who was found to be over the limit. 1.17 The compromise which was adopted in response to this opposition did not, despite impressions to the contrary, actually forbid ‘random testing’: the spon- sors of the Bill made this clear at the time. Nor would it have been feasible to rule it out, since the police had to be left with considerable discretion which, within the specified categories, they could have exercised ‘randomly’. That they have not operated in this way is the result, not of the law, but of practical considerations. But the legal restrictions on police discretion have had the effect of securing the acquittal of many who were over the limit, thereby discrediting the law, and of handicapping the police in their proper function of detecting drinking drivers. 1.18 Removing the limitations on the power to test drivers would permit police discretion to be exercised in relation to the actual patterns of drinking and driving behaviour, rather than to artificial criteria. Enforcement strategy could be directed purposefully, flexibly, and to maximum effect. 1.19 Moreover, this change would do much to dispel the dangerous illusion under which a person often drinks more than is consistent with safe driving. He does not realise how alcohol has reduced his ability to respond suitably to the actions of other road users—the pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers whom he may encounter on the way home. Until he meets an unexpected hazard and has—or narrowly misses—an accident, he thinks he is driving safely. This notion is fostered by the idea, to which the present law gives substance, that, barring an accident or moving traffic offence, he is ‘safe’ from being stopped and tested. Removal of the limitations which encourage that idea would thus have a salutary effect on drivers’ attitudes.