Driven Mad?

Three serious car accidents within the space of a few days. Two people dead, one very critically injured, and at least one person escaping death or very serious injury only through God’s grace or extreme good fortune.  In all three cases the drivers were reportedly under the influence of alcohol, or to put it more technically correctly, had moderate to very high amounts of alcohol in their blood as measured by breathalyser.

No wonder one of the major talking-points over the past few days has been the regulation of drink-driving and enforcement of the prevailing legislation.

Malta was one of the last countries in Europe to introduce proper laws regulating drink driving. It was only in the mid-90s that the Government responded to the requests and promptings mainly from  addiction operatives and health officials and announced it was planning the enactment of legislation which would establish a permissible amount of alcohol in the blood, introduce the use of the breathalyser and lay down appropriate penalties for infractions.

Initially government’s  intentions were to establish a BAC (blood alcohol concentration) of 100mgs per decilitre of blood - the highest in Europe at the time. I very clearly remember the then Prime Minister, Eddie Fenech Adami, visiting Dar iż-Żerniq (which, at the time, housed sedqa’s Alcohol Services) a few months before the 1996 elections. We fiercely remonstrated with him about this. His response was that government had been advised that a couple of beers would push up the limit to close to that level - which is quite wrong.

The law was eventually passed - by Alfred Sant’s government in 1998. It established a permitted BAC of 80mgs of alcohol/deciltre of blood with a fine of  for those found guilty of exceeding that amount. The driving licence would be suspended, but, disappointingly, only if the blood level exceeded 100mg/deciltre. Most frustratingly of all for those of us who believed that only strong measures would have a substantial effect on the number of alcohol-related incidents and deaths, the law did not allow random testing of drivers, but limited it to situations where the police had “reasonable suspicion’’ that the person at the wheel was under the influence.

The level of alcohol allowed by the law was still the highest in Europe; only the UK and Ireland permitted similar levels. Worse still, generally speaking, official attitudes towards drink-driving were quite lackadaisical at the time. One high-ranking police officer reassured the nation on TV that the enactment of this law did not mean the police would be testing people who were driving home from weddings. In Parliament, similarly complacent attitudes were expressed during the debate about the legislation: it appears that the message which was being passed on to drivers was “Don’t worry if you have a drink or two before you drive. The law will only come hard on those who truly overdo it’’ .

Over the years, agencies and health officials campaigned for changes in the legislation. Possibly as a result, in 2009 the fine for a first drink-driving offence was upped to a more acceptable €1200 and refusing a breathalyser test became an offence equivalent to testing positive - and incurring the same penalties.

Since then the law has changed further: most recently, the allowable amount was lowered to 50mgs for most drivers and to 20mgs to “novice drivers’’ and drivers of commercial vehicles. No amount of alcohol is allowable in the case of drivers of vehicles carrying fee-paying passengers. The fine for a first drink-driving offence had in the meantime risen to €1800, while a second or subsequent offence would set back the offending driver €3000. The driving licence is to be suspended for 6 months and 12 months respectively. Nowadays points are deducted for each driving infraction.

In all cases involving drink-driving, the Magistrate MAY sentence the miscreant to probation order including a rehab programme or Community Service, but only if the BAC is considerably higher than the limits permitted by law.

The law as it currently stands has some serious flaws, primary among which is its failure to allow the police unfettered discretion to carry out breathalyser tests. This deficiency, pointed out by agencies and NGOs in 1998 when the original law was enacted has never been corrected. One possible reason for the failure to address this defect in the law was the mistaken belief, held by Government consultants, that European courts could strike any such legal provision down on the grounds that it violated human rights. Many EU countries including The Netherlands, Denmark and Cyprus (to mention but three) empower the police to stop drivers and test them at random.

If we truly wish to cut down on drink-driving deaths and serious injuries, we should adopt a stricter approach to the prevention of drink driving:

1. Lower the BAC to 20mgs for general driving purposes and to 0mgs for novice drivers, drivers of commercial vehicles and drivers of vehicles with fee-paying passengers. Yes, the plan is to pave the way for eventually totally prohibiting the presence of alcohol in the blood of those at the wheel of all sorts of vehicles. The only truly safe amount of alcohol in the blood in the context of driving is 0mgs. 

2. Introduce - and actually implement - unfettered, random stopping and testing through breathalyser.

3. Introduce mandatory testing through breathalyser when accidents (including minor collisions) occur.

4. Enforce legislation thoroughly and ruthlessly. One need not wait until the current legislation is amended. At present police may (and indeed do at times) stop drivers at random for certain purposes ( to check driving licences, for example) and test them if they show signs (smell, slurred speech, erratic driving) of being under the influence. Around New Year's Eve the police mount an impressively efficient operation which based on random stopping but suspicion-based testing as allowed by law, which has seen the number of deaths during Yuletide go down considerably compared to, say, the previous decade.

A similar exercise a few times a year, publicising the number of people apprehended and making sure that arraignments and sentences are splashed all over the media, would drive the fear of God (well the fear of legal consequences) in many drivers and considerably reduce the number of casualties.

5.  Do away with the automatic restoration of licences once the period of suspension is over. Licences will be given back only the if the offending driver has undergone an assessment by a recognised alcohol agency which rules out  a serious current drinking problem and can recommend treatment.

6. A third (or subsequent) infraction of the drink-driving rules should result in a mandatory (i.e.not left to the Magistrate’s discretion) prison sentence.

7. All these measures should apply also to sea-craft.

Draconian? Only if the much-vaunted respect for human life is in reality so many impressively lofty, but ultimately empty, platitudes.