Legal alcohol limit to be lowered in SA

Proposed amendments to the National Road Traffic Amendment Bill could see the blood alcohol level of a driver drop from 0.05g/100ml to 0.02g/100ml, it was reported on Saturday.

This would mean that a person may not even have a full 340ml beer before driving, the Beeld reported.

Looks like I picked the right day to get addicted to cough mixtures.

Are there studies that show the safety improvements from lowering the legal limit to such a low amount?

Originally Posted by Rosaudio

Are there studies that show the safety improvements from lowering the legal limit to such a low amount?

Who knows, but a law without proper enforcement and legal systems = failure.

Drunk pedestrians also cause a large proportion of accidents. My wife was driving in Church Street in Wynberg when this inebriated man fell off the pavement in front of her. She braked hard, the car behind her could not, so swung out and collided with a car on the left hand side which in turn drove into 3 parked cars, one of which contained a mother and child. The SAPS arrived and wanted to arrest my wife for reckless driving, but the owner of the pawnshop came out and said he had thrown out this drunk bergie since he tried to urinate inside the shop and saw him fall off the pavement. The bergie in the meantime disappeared. About 4 months later she gets a summons from Mutual and Federal's attorneys demanding R 1.2 million for damage to property. Fortunately, we have public liability insurance through Santam and they took care of it.

there are so many roadblocks around the northern suburbs these days I don't touch a drop if I know I'm getting behind the wheel

I think this is a good thing, sure it will make life difficult especially with our crap public transport scenario and expensive cabs, but it's still the right thing

Good, now to actually enforce the kaw and start convicting people and confiscating their cars which must be forfeited to the state

Originally Posted by marine1

Good, now to actually enforce the kaw and start convicting people and confiscating their cars which must be forfeited to the state

You want people to hand over cars to your beloved ANC? But why padawan?

This is just so that traffic cops can catch more people and get more money.

I'd like to point out that if you know that you'll be driving, you shouldn't actually be drinking at all so a reduction of the alcohol limit should hardly impact you.

Originally Posted by Tojo's racoon henchman

Looks like I picked the right day to get addicted to cough mixtures.

Most liquid medication has 10% alcohol.

Edit: ok it's variable but quite high, check this list: http://westbalto.a-1associates.com/LINKS/Drugs.htm

We have so many problems in south Africa why worry about things that are not relevant.
Concentrate on problems instead of causing problems.

The problem is not the people who have one or two drinks, so lowering the legal limit serves no one.

There are countries where you are not allowed to drink and drive at all, yet they still have issues.

As mentioned before drunk walkers are the real problem, that and people who have way more than one or two drinks

I honestly don't see the problem with having 1 beer early on in the night. Now even that is risky.

Originally Posted by chrisc4290

Drunk pedestrians also cause a large proportion of accidents. My wife was driving in Church Street in Wynberg when this inebriated man fell off the pavement in front of her. She braked hard, the car behind her could not, so swung out and collided with a car on the left hand side which in turn drove into 3 parked cars, one of which contained a mother and child. The SAPS arrived and wanted to arrest my wife for reckless driving, but the owner of the pawnshop came out and said he had thrown out this drunk bergie since he tried to urinate inside the shop and saw him fall off the pavement. The bergie in the meantime disappeared. About 4 months later she gets a summons from Mutual and Federal's attorneys demanding R 1.2 million for damage to property. Fortunately, we have public liability insurance through Santam and they took care of it.

I would've told them to get fscked. Safe following distances are there for a reason. If their client didn't abide by it then he/she was the reckless one.

I don't suppose they were paying attention. Everyone was creeping along since the traffic light 50 metres ahead had already turned red. So this bum thinks he can make a dash over the road but tripped as he left the pavement and nearly got squashed. Wife said he was already under the front of the car and she and the shop owner had to drag him out. The smell was atrocious. But he got up and buggered off.

Originally Posted by Rosaudio

I honestly don't see the problem with having 1 beer early on in the night. Now even that is risky.

Agreed. I've quite often had a beer and then driven an hour or so later. This legislation is ridiculous. Would you even be able to have a lite beer?

This is totally ridiculous in my opinion.

The people having 1, 2 or 3 drinks in an evening are NOT the problem.... all this does is criminalise more of the population rather than actually attempting to solve a problem.

I vote no. There's no benefit to lowering the limit. Having a fixed limit is in itself a dumb idea because it completely fails to take real impairment into account.

Originally Posted by Nerfherder

The problem is not the people who have one or two drinks, so lowering the legal limit serves no one.

There are countries where you are not allowed to drink and drive at all, yet they still have issues.

As mentioned before drunk walkers are the real problem, that and people who have way more than one or two drinks

It is very difficult to enforce a law against walking while drunk. How far can a person walk to get to transport? If they call a taxi are they allowed to walk to their taxi or must they arrange someone to carry them to it? Ultimately you really only have a small number of drunks causing issues and the only enforcement you can do is holding them liable when they, for example, cause an accident.

Originally Posted by chrisc4290

Drunk pedestrians also cause a large proportion of accidents. My wife was driving in Church Street in Wynberg when this inebriated man fell off the pavement in front of her. She braked hard, the car behind her could not, so swung out and collided with a car on the left hand side which in turn drove into 3 parked cars, one of which contained a mother and child. The SAPS arrived and wanted to arrest my wife for reckless driving, but the owner of the pawnshop came out and said he had thrown out this drunk bergie since he tried to urinate inside the shop and saw him fall off the pavement. The bergie in the meantime disappeared. About 4 months later she gets a summons from Mutual and Federal's attorneys demanding R 1.2 million for damage to property. Fortunately, we have public liability insurance through Santam and they took care of it.

The person behind is at fault if they were so close and travelling so fast they had to swerve.

Also if it's a bergie they're not really going to care or bother to stay sober just because it is illegal to walk while drunk.

its a good thing. the fewer people with alcohol in their systems on the roads, the better. They should make it 0% as far as im concerned.

It will instill the mindset that u CANNOT drink and drive. full stop, no 'I've had one beer, im ok' nonsense. Alcohol impairs your judgement, yout judgement to drive & also to decide if you are actually sober enough to drive.