A call by the police to lower the legal blood alcohol limit will not work unless it's part of a package of measures to limit the promotion of alcohol, according to a leading road safety expert.
Clive Matthew-Wilson, editor of the car buyer's Dog & Lemon Guide, said today:
"Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that we lock up P dealers but give brewers knighthoods?
Alcohol is statistically New Zealand's most dangerous drug, yet there's a multi-million dollar industry encouraging people to drink like fish. The best the government can do in response is to run ads on tv telling people to drink responsibly. Is it any wonder that the country has a drink-drive problem?"
Matthew-Wilson says that the young are most at risk, both because of the heavy promotion of alcohol to this group and because youth culture views binge drinking as normal.
"The people - especially MPs - who say that drinking is a matter of personal responsibility are in complete lack of contact with Planet Earth. The reality is that people - especially young people - are not making informed choices about drinking. Instead these drinkers are making appallingly bad choices and often wrecking lives in the process.
In the real world, the people most likely to drink are the least likely to be able to control the consequences. The police need to shift their focus from simply standing at the bottom of the cliff to keeping people from falling in the first place.
I totally support drink-driving blitzes, but the appalling number of drunk-drivers caught this weekend shows that current strategies are simply not working.
Can we please stop concentrating on the bodies at the bottom of the cliff and start focussing on the industry above that's helping to push them off?"
- Sobering statistics: Alcohol is directly implicated in around one quarter of road deaths and 35% of all types of injury. A recent survey by the Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council showed that one quarter of 14-17-year-olds drink heavily and regularly.