Three drinks and you're out
Transport Minister Paul Swain is close to securing Cabinet approval for the legal alcohol level to be lowered from 80 to 50 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood.
How many people have their driving ability impaired by being just under the limit of 80mg/100ml?
The proposed cut is part of a plan to reduce the number of road deaths to less than 300 per year and the number of hospitalisations from road crashes to less than 4500 by 2010. Last year there were 403 fatalities and 6470 hospitalisations.
The article says there was only one person killed last year whose blood/alcohol level was under the current limit but would be over the proposed limit.
Another thing that irritates me is the road fatality statistic. An accident where five people in a car die is treated worse that an accident where the sole occupant of the car dies. For a road toll they should be each counted as one fatal accident.
