cont of last diary other part in next post
Evidence from all over the world indicates that the thing that deters criminals more is not the severity of sentence for a given crime but the https://nytimes.com/2009/10/04/business/economy/04view.html?_r=32009. A strong chance of getting apprehended followed by a light sentence is a greater deterrence, apparently, than a lengthy sentence but only a remote chance of arrest.
By the same token, the sure way to deter drink-driving is to increase the enforcement rather than worsening the punishment or indeed lowering the blood-alcohol limit.
However, in Ireland (and probably elsewhere), there is a problem with being truly grim about enforcement. Statistics published by Ireland's HSE (Health & Safety Executive) confirm what everyone instinctively knows: that most drunks crash their cars at the weekend ...
in other words going home after an alcohol-fuelled night out in the pub, club, disco or restaurant.
Since that's where the problem clearly lies, that's where the enforcement should concentrate. Breath-testers should be waiting outside such establishments late at night at weekends to pounce on patrons as they stagger out and into their cars.
But this would naturally cause uproar, not only on the part of the thousands of drunk drivers who would find themselves fined, penalty-pointed or banned, but among the entertainment establishments themselves whose patronage would drop off dramatically.
That's why politicians - Irish ones at any rate - are hugely reluctant to oblige the boys in blue to properly enforce the 80mg drink-drive limit.
It's also why they much prefer to introduce new legislation (also to be under-enforced) so that they at least appear to be “doing something”. Hence the Irish government's current proposal to reduce the limit to 50mg. Yet to everyone's surprise, backbenchers have stopped this wheeze in its tracks because of the effect it would have on rural pubs and on the fabric of rural society centred on going to the pub.
I say “wheeze” because that's what it is. The reason advanced for the proposed reduction is twofold.
