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Part of the problem is that people see it as i can have 4/2/6/8 units and I'll be fine.

Far too many variables.
Which an effectively zero level would eliminate, I hope.

Too much of a generalisation, it varies greatly between people.
exactly, and people are doing all sorts of maths trying to justify getting behind the wheel. Mad.

Are you suggesting that as a society, we can learn to live without booze and equating it to discrimination? Are you teetotal?
No, I'm saying that I don't understand the society-wide deification of alcohol, its properties, and those who are able to consume it in vast quantities. I'm not teetotal, at all. I'm just curious as to why we as a society allow our apparently irrational love for booze cost lives. I have a strict personal no-booze-at-all rule if driving/riding is required.

I wasn't equating it to discrimination, I was just being facetious to point out that just because something's being going on for a while, doesn't make it right. Which seemed to be the justification you advanced for not reducing drink drive limits to the effectively zero level.

I've never really understood it as a numbers game.

Drunk=Tired=Talking on phone=Arguing with passenger=lighting cigarette as far as I can see as contributory effects in road accidents. Why not treat all of them equally?

I guess in theory that's what 'careless driving' and 'dangerous driving' prosecutions are supposed to acheive. It does seem that these are far more frequently applied to the breaking of some mandated limit than to genuine poor driving when contravention of a limit has not necessarily occurred.

I think cutting the drink driving limit would have a markedly lower impact on road fatalities than the active pursuit and prosecution of careless or aggressive driving where drink is not involved.
REPPED but it's easier to catch drink drivers, because you don't have to catch the exact instant of inattention, you can nab them an hour after they nearly squished someone and still get a tick in a box.

I am not an alcohol worshipper. I'm trying to be realisitic. There is no way a 100% ban would be enated especially with the current economical state of things.
What about the fact that some folk naturally produce alcohol in their blood stream having never been near a boozer. How many years do you propose they get? People die because others go beyond the limit.
Like I've said I'd rather see more testing and presence from the police as well as much tougher laws for motorists breaking the rules.
A zero-limit is actually the 20 in blood so that the alcohol producing people don't get punished. Which also means a cheeky half pint is ok for most, I guess. I suppose the tax revenues on booze are massive right now, and HM Treasury needs the wedge.

Yes to more enforcement!

Because there are centuries old traditions concerning drinking alcohol, and only a century or so of motor traffic. Lets ban cars.
I can go for this.

Can we also reinstate hanging for gays and remove the vote from women?

Discrimination goes back at least as far as booze. Age =/= validity. See also, Royal Family, The.

GPS equipment doesn't need to transmit or have persistent data storage.
True. Problem is the tabloid press' capability and willingness to understand engineering and design and its capacity to ignore the truth to generate a headline and a quick buck ;)

are there any actual downsides other than cost?

Half a pint on the way to a very remote home?
why not have a coke / orange juice / cup of tea? Why does it have to be alcohol? Why is it wrong to make the person living in a remote area choose between the operation of heavy machinery and the consumption of something that affects motor skills and reaction times??

This sort of attitude is PRECISELY why people get killed. "It's quiet out, I'll be fine".

EDIT sorry, didn't mean to get all patronising, but I don't get the alcohol-worshipping culture and the disregard for others that prevails so often. This shit literally kills people, and I don't accept that it's essential to drink.

And now I sound sanctimonious. Fucking brilliant.

i have only just seen this.

a related point is that there is so much road crime about that the prisons are not big enough to house all the pesistent road crime offenders.

but that does strengthen the argument for 20 mph and speed bumps in residential areas. i.e. we acknowledge we cannot get them off the road therefore we will have to slow them down before they cause danger to other road users.

and before you all start howling - cos you have done before. i dont like speed bumps either. they are uncomfortable. but i have now lost four people i know to road death. and i am prepared to put up with the discomfort and inconvenince of speed bumps to try and reduce road death.

see you out there.
RE 20 in residential areas

thinking about this the other day, and I think a sea-change in attitudes is needed. The best way would be to GPS tag new cars and electronically limit the acceleration that is available in built-up areas. It effectively caps a car's power in town. Traffic smoothing effect too?

There's a civil liberties downside, and retro fit would probably be expensive. Hmm, hard to know whether this would ever work.

Expense & effectiveness I guess.

It seems a far better solution to just take away the toys of those that don't play nice. Driving should be a privilege, after all.

Fines almost act as permission to those that can afford them.
Bang on. Deterrent effect is just about non existent. The yanks lock up more than 700 people per 100k of population, in the UK it's 140-odd. Punishment does not deter, as a criminal does not typically engage in a logical cost-benefit analysis before the criminal behaviour. This goes double for offences where the person is necessarily impaired (i.e. drink driving).

EDIT -- we should make like norway, fine as proportion of income, no exceptions, no limits. Nokia executive got hit for 300k € or something ridiculous. Unfortunately not for talking on his phone but for speeding.

Does it?

Have you any evidence that 1 per 100 makes you less safe than 0 per 100?
I think there are some studies about super low level consumption...goes off to google

If you have (which I am sure you haven't) then I would bet my life that other factors (such as competence, time of day) would dwarf the effect of 1 per 100.
Quite possible!

I would be happy if the rules successfully forbade the drinking of more than 1 pint, or half a pint before driving.
This is what the new limit would be. 2 pints before midnight then driving at 7 am should be ok. And this is why the no tolerance thing is a good idea -- no more idiots saying "well there's 2 units in a pint, I've had 3 but over six hours, and I'm a big lad and can handle my drink, so where's me keys?"

No uncertainty, and a nice easy rule to follow - don't drink and drive!

You must distinguish between having a drink and being drunk.

There are many people living in isolation/rural that do not have oyster cards, or the option of 6 buses home per hour, for whom having a drink in the only pub (and social setting) for miles is very important.
And it absolutely HAS to be alcohol? what is so bad about making people choose between operating heavy machinery on the public roads and the consumption of a fluid that impairs your motor skills, reaction times, everything??

Stats that show many people d&d because they percieve the risk of being caught as being very low. Changing bits of the law will not make the blindest bit of difference unless there is a bigger Police presense on roads and random road-side breathalysing.
More police needed, better enforcement of road traffic offences needed, agreed.

Thread dredge after UTFS and not wanting to clog up the reporting dangerous drivers...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/9388185

The legal drink-drive limit should be lowered to an "effectively zero" level but such a reduction is "too great a step at this stage", a report by MPs has said.
The current level is 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood and the Government should aim, in the long-term, for a reduction to 20mg, the report from the House of Commons Transport Committee said.
The MPs described 20mg as "effectively zero" and added that any reduction in the limit should only occur after an extensive Government education campaign about drink strengths and their effects on the body.
The report said there was "little evidence to suggest the public would support such a drastic, immediate change in the law".

Who gives a shit? Change it! You think the public support tax rises / service cuts / whatever? Course not, but you do it anyway! Who gives a shite what people think?

Can you imagine if they pulled that shit with cars?

"Yeh, we've got...er...well, one of them's silver, another one is similar but in red, and the last two are squarer than the others."

Edit - photos on linked article. Pfff. Still, how are the blind going to know what to look out for?

2.5 weeks in Italy. Shit the bed they do things properly over there. Some lovely lavazza stuff ground right for stovetops in every supermarket worked a treat in a mini bialetti in the rented gaff. The hotels restaurants and cafes all had big ass commercial machines. I saw the tiniest grottiest cafe churning out freshly ground freshly poured espressos at 75cents a cup.

bought a bialetti as a present and some lavazza coffee. Visited the last roaster in venice, but didn't have funds (last day of trip) to bring back more coffee :(

a caffeine filled holiday :D

It wasn't near the Gare du Nord at all - and I'm pretty sure I saw other bikes chained up to other lamposts/'street furniture'.

Maybe it varies by arrondissement...
I park my scooter on the big pavement thing when I pick people up. Don't think the rules vary with arrondissement. If you avoid stationnement genant (blocking the pavement, being in the way etc) then you're usually fine.

Milgauss -- also handy if you're near massive sources of magnetism.

Just had to put the second battery (in six years!) in my swatch chrono. The second hand now stops just short of the 12...which is irritating me. Definitely not worth fixing, will just hang on for christmas and hope I get something shiny!

Well, 'pedants' doesn't have to be a possessive here (it needn't be analogous to 'Speakers' Corner', although that is of course the most common pattern), but your assumption that he omitted the apostrophe where one pedant's possessive's apostrophe would have belonged, rather than where the correct apostrophe to denote several pedants should have been placed, is unsafe, anyway. :)
Ha, a bite! Does nobody read Private Eye? They have a pedants corner (deliberately unpunctuated to avoid further controversy), and had a very lengthy correspondence of people arguing over correct placement of the apostrophe. Can't remember who won.

EDIT -- I've got loads of great stories like this. shakes head at sorry state of life

"Pedants' corner"

Because there's more than just one on here...

yeh the new equality act includes nationality as part of "race"...so yes, new zealandish is a "race" for the purposes of "racial discrimination". This is actually a very hot topic at work right now!

end of thread derail

good effort all of you in any case, that was some nasty weather! Even without the rain that's a decent effort of course.

Only managed 60km of my weekend ride before the rain. Doesn't matter what you wear in that sort of rain! How did you guys get back to blighty?

And rather than me sticking my number up on here, pm me if you feel it could be useful and I'll provide it, or at least the number of a south American ladyboy.

And if anyone needs a hand in Paris I'll be about all weekend, probably playing at being a roadie in the mornings. Maybe an off-roadie if I can be arsed to fix the mtb...anyhoo, I'll be about.

No, but smoking makes you lose all your cases, no? ;)
I can't help you to prove this I'm afraid, as I neither smoke nor lose ;)

I would help out, but I only have a 62cm fixed and a 64cm road bike...don't think that's gonig to help much.

lots of people use the velib, they don't get looked down on unless they ride like bellends. There are some other forumengers arriving on a london-paris ride this weekend.

I will be riding this weekend.