The Traffic Research Foundation, a Canadian organization, released a report that the percentage of Canadians who drive while exceeding the legal limit of alcohol in their blood is 8.2 per cent; significantly higher than the 5.6 per cent that did so in 2004. According to the Foundation, 90 per cent of people who drink and drive do so regularly.
Back in November the U.K. government toyed with the idea of adopting a zero tolerance policy towards driving after consuming alcohol. Any trace of the demon rum in a driver’s system would be enough to attract civil and/or criminal consequences. So naturally after evidence that indicates that drinking and driving is on the increase after years of transforming that activity from a socially acceptable practice to a criminal act, there are some Canadians that think that zero tolerance is a good idea.
Presently anyone who is caught behind the wheel with between 50 and 80 milligrams of alcohol for every 100 milliliters of blood is subject to a licence suspension. Those who are convicted of exceeding 80 milligrams of alcohol or driving while their ability to operate a motor vehicle is impaired are subject to criminal sanctions including lengthy suspensions, fines and imprisonment. These amounts of 50 and 80 were not simply picked out of the air and are fairly standard throughout the world. There is no evidence that people who have one cocktail before dinner or one glass of wine with it pose a danger to themselves and others who use the roads. Zero tolerance would have the effect of criminalizing those people who currently drive after consuming an amount of alcohol that causes no adverse effect. This is yet another example of attempting to get the bad guys by going after the law abiding citizens who don’t drive while they are impaired or while their blood/alcohol levels exceed .05. Can anyone say “gun control”?
The reasoning behind those who support zero tolerance is fairly simple. We are just too stupid to control our own lives so the government has to do it for us. We may intend to have just one drink but we simply cannot control ourselves and only have one drink. The proponents don’t think about the opposite effect of zero tolerance; that if someone has that one drink and by so doing faces arrest, he or she might think that they might as well have a few more. More importantly, zero tolerance will do absolutely nothing to prevent those who are currently driving drunk and causing carnage on the highways from doing so. If someone drives with two or three times the legal limit of alcohol in their system they are not likely to change their behaviour because of zero tolerance.
In the wake of the Traffic Research Foundation’s findings, the subject of zero tolerance became fodder for radio talk shows. Perhaps Ryan Doyle of Toronto’s CFRB put it best when he told his listeners that sometimes it is okay for the government to scare people. And that of course is the crux of any zero tolerance policy.
The purpose of criminal law is to keep society well ordered and civilized and to prevent harm to others. Its purpose is not to scare people even though fear may be the result in someone who contemplates breaking the law. The type of government that Doyle envisages is pure fascism where law abiding people whose conduct does not cause harm to society or others are scared into behaving the way the government wants them to behave. Any difference between a government that would prohibit citizens from having a drink before dinner and say, Nazi Germany is, as the old joke says, merely haggling over the price.
Implementing a zero tolerance policy towards drinking and driving will make the proponents feel all warm and fuzzy about themselves and will deter responsible citizens from having that one drink before dinner or that one glass of wine, but it won’t make a dent in the number of people who currently drive while they are drunk. And feeling good seems to be what it’s all about.
