Madam, - The decision to postpone the lowering of the drink driving limit until a socially acceptable limit is decided on is baffling. The international evidence is clear that even small amounts of alcohol consumed are detrimental to your driving ability.
The legal limit should be reduced to 20mg per 100ml of blood; in effect allowing no alcohol at all when driving. Does this postponement mean that there is a socially acceptable number of alcohol-related deaths on the road?
Perhaps 20, 50 or even 100 deaths a year? The fact is that there is no acceptable number of deaths due to alcohol on our roads, socially or otherwise. The limit should be reduced and quickly. - Yours, etc,
Dr DECLAN BEDFORD,
Navan,
Co Meath.
Madam, - I refer to your front page article on Monday (October 29th) and am at a loss to make sense of it.
You quote U-turn Dempsey as saying "by the end of June 2008 all applicants for a driving test will be able to get a test on demand, within 10+ weeks".
Let us look closely at those words. "On demand" means that a product or service is available when requested.
Take, for example, the case of a person walking into a shop to buy a loaf of bread. Would that person tolerate being told that their order is appreciated and accepted and the bread will be ready in 10 weeks' time?
Unfortunately the matter does not end there because, if you have quoted U-turn correctly, he did not promise that a test would be available in 10 weeks, he appears to have said that a test will be available within 10+ weeks.
In other words, nothing will change since we already have a system in which any applicant for a driving test can get a test in 10+ weeks. It is the value of + that is unknown.
The sad thing in this banana republic is that neither U-turn nor his political master can see anything wrong. - Yours, etc,
IAN KAVANAGH,
Suir Road,
Kilmainham,
Dublin 8.
Madam, - Today's (October 31st) Irish Times makes depressing reading from a road safety point of view; a rise in the car crash rate and inquest evidence that "three pints of Guinness and just under two bottles of Corona lager" kept a driver under the legal limit for drink driving.
In May 2002 the Department of Health's Strategic Task Force on Alcohol recommended a lowering of the blood alcohol limit for driving from 0.8mg per cent to 0.5mg per cent.
A 2006 survey of public attitudes commissioned by Alcohol Action Ireland found that 67 per cent of respondents support this reduction.
Inexplicably, the Road Safety Authority, which has done excellent work since being established, has kicked this matter to touch.
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey should move immediately to lower the blood alcohol limit for driving to 0.5mg per cent. - Yours, etc,
Prof JOE BARRY
Department of Public Health and Primary Care,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2.