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Drink-driving limits 'ridiculous' - minister

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Lovelee
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« on: September 10, 2009, 08:51:20 am »

Motorists have been given a strong lead that tougher drink-driving laws are on the way.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce yesterday described existing legal alcohol limits for drivers as "ridiculous".

Speaking to a conference of traffic experts in Auckland, Mr Joyce said he could drink three-quarters of a bottle of wine in 90 minutes yet still have every chance of being under the legal alcohol limit for adult drivers.

"That's just ridiculous," he told the Local Authority Traffic Institute conference.

But he said heavy advertising when the existing adult limit of 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood was introduced in 1978 had made it difficult for him to gain popular acceptance for a further cut.

"A huge amount of advertising was done at the time which said it was just a couple of drinks and then one an hour."

The result was a popular misconception that reducing the limit to 50mg - one of 61 ideas suggested in a Ministry of Transport discussion paper - would restrict motorists to little more than one standard drink if they wanted to drive home.


%3Cbody%3E%3Cdiv%20id%3D%22adDiv%22%3E%3C/div%3E"We have a problem here, because we have to tell them that no, it's a lot more than that," Mr Joyce said.

He said he wanted to hear a full range of community views on the various proposals before the Government committed itself to rule changes to slash the road toll by 2020.

Community support was essential for any change to succeed, the minister said, and there was no point "in us popping our heads up one day" and telling the public a new limit was in force.

"They're not going to have that," he said.

"So we have to get that point across much more aggressively and that's a challenge for me."

The first moves towards rule changes would be ready by about October next year, "so there is going to be a big discussion".

Mr Joyce told the Herald last night that his ultimate support for a lower alcohol limit could not be assumed, despite his concern at the amount drivers could drink under the present law.

He had based his wine calculation on advice in the ministry's "Safer Journeys" discussion paper that the existing limit allowed adult men to have six standard drinks within 90 minutes.

He described himself as a "social drinker" and could not recall having consumed that amount of alcohol before driving.

The discussion paper gives six drinks as the allowance for a man of average height and weight. For a woman, the limit is four drinks.

It says a limit of 50mg of alcohol, based on Australian guidelines, would allow an average man to have two drinks in the first hour and one an hour thereafter.

The discussion paper suggests a zero-alcohol tolerance for drivers younger than 20 and tightening the graduated licensing system.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10596304&ref=rss
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