Don't Drink Think!

A new survey for the government's THINK! campaign has found that 92% of the British public would be ashamed of drink driving and 91% felt that it was unacceptable to drive drunk.

This is certainly to be welcomed and represents an attitudinal shift that has been going on for some time.  Indeed the number of accidents involving a drunk driver has been decreasing significantly.  In 2012 6,630 accidents involved a drunk driver (a 44% reduction since 2000), 210 of which were fatal accidents (a 53% reduction since 2000).

Drink driving itself may also be said to be reducing based on the number of drivers failing a breath tests, in 2012 11% of all breath tests resulted in either failure or the driver refusing to give a specimen.  Again that proportion is reducing from 20% in 2003 to 11% in 2012.  At the same time there has been an overall increase in the number of breath tests being issued, from 534,285 in 2003 to 682,558 in 2012.  Over the previous ten years there has be an average 3% reduction year on year in the number of breath tests failed or refused, and an average 6% reduction in the number of road accidents caused by drink driving.

The statistics therefore bear out the opinion poll, however, one should be cautious about the findings of the opinion poll.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to locate an actual copy of the poll results or the questions asked, therefore the methodology used is unknown.  From my own research I can say that one does need to treat with caution peoples attitudes as expressed in an opinion poll, this is especially the case where that poll relates to questions of legality.

I have little doubt that a very large proportion of the public look on drink driving with distaste, however, what I would question is what members of the public understand by the phrase 'drink driving'.  Are the public aware of the legal limits and how this translates into their own drinking practices?  I think that is much more interesting question and one that is difficult to answer using survey research.

If people aren't aware of the legal demand 

In the UK, the alcohol limit for drivers is 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, 35 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath or 107 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of urine

or aren't aware of how this demand translates into glasses, pints and measures, one needs to be suspect of the attitudes as expressed in the THINK! survey.

What I have found in my own research is that in opinion surveys relating to minor laws people are generally motivated to comply with laws but their behaviour suggests otherwise.  A really rather brilliant study by Darely, Carlsmith and Robinson highlights this problem.  Citizens may profess to know what the law is and claim to be affected by it, however frequently the authors found that the public (and judges, lawyers and police officers) have completely misunderstood the actual legal requirements and thus their claims of being influenced by the law are suspect.

Thus I may think drink driving is unacceptable, however, do I think my pint of Stella puts me over the drink drive limit?  I don't know.  Of course the easiest solution is to not drive at all once drinking (a course I always take and so should you!) however, how do I know when it is safe to drive again? Talk to any police officer and they will have multiple stories of the upstanding member of society being arrested for drunk driving because they had drank the previous night.  Is that as unacceptable behaviour as willful disregard of drink driving rules?  I shall leave that to the reader.

These are important questions that need to be asked, and answered, before we can confidently state that drink driving is no longer acceptable at all.  One reason why this is an important question is due to the repeated call to adopt zero tolerance to drink driving (i.e. 0 alcohol in the blood, breath and urine).  With such an approach there is a danger that you don't take the public with you and that the system becomes discredited because it does not target the actual behaviour that we, as society, find unacceptable.

Some may feel that it is unacceptable to drive with any alcohol in the blood, I suspect however that this feeling is not as widespread as current opinion in the THINK! survey suggests.