Category - Bad Drivers

This time of year, all the newspapers are filled to the brim with stories about alcohol – primarily because it’s also the time when the police launch their Christmas and New Year drink drive campaigns.

If you search the internet, just about every source says that body mass affects direct alcohol absorption, and that generally, smaller people will be affected by less alcohol than larger people. The sources in question are reputable, and include scientific references. This one, for example, is by the Indiana School of Medicine and it says:

There are gender differences in body composition, with women having a lower proportion of total body water compared to men, even if they have the same weight. Thus, if a woman and a man, who both have the same weight, consume the same amount of alcohol, the woman would achieve higher blood alcohol levels compared to the man.

And the American National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) says:

Regardless of how much a person consumes, the body can only metabolize a certain amount of alcohol every hour (2). That amount varies widely among individuals and depends on a range of factors, including liver size (1) and body mass.

These are just two examples I quickly found via Google – there are many, many more all saying more or less the same thing. That’s why people frequently talk of body mass when they refer to how quickly someone can get drunk. What you’ve eaten, and how much, also affects alcohol absorption.

So it comes as a bit of a surprise to see a story in the newsfeeds which says Body Size Doesn’t Affect Drink Driving Limit, Research Reveals.

In actual fact, the “research” consisted of the following:

A man weighing 11st 6lb (73kg) and just under 5ft 10in (177cm) tall and a woman weighing 9st 6lb (60kg) and 5ft 5in (165cm) were tested after consuming the same amount of alcohol.

Let me just explain that this is absolutely not “research”. It’s no better than using a questionnaire given to 10 people coming out of the local Conservative Club and using the results to determine what the outcome of a General Election would be. And it’s laughable that the Huffington Post should be so stupid as to effectively do exactly that by believing Direct Line – the people pretending to be “researchers” in this case – and reporting this utter nonsense.

Direct Line’s “data” prove absolutely nothing that could be applied to the general population.

Drinking and driving is stupid, so don’t do it. But don’t make stuff up to try and lever it.

I thought the word “mother” should be in inverted commas. It was either that, or insert the word “unfit” before it.

This story tells how the specimen in question – her name is withheld to “protect the identity of the children” – drank almost a full bottle of vodka, then went to pick up her three kids from school.

The story isn’t quite clear on whether she actually did pick them up – she says she didn’t, but they were found in a local supermarket under the “supervision” of a friend aged 10. The children in question were aged between three and seven.

She blew 110 – the legal limit is 35 – so she was almost four times the drink drive limit.

Incredibly, she got away with a community sentence, a curfew, and a two year ban. If she’d have been a man she’d have got a lot worse, so the sentence smacks of discrimination. It also appears that the poor children have not been taken away from her, so God knows what they’ll turn into when they are older (and being out alone in a supermarket already gives a suggestion of which way they’re heading).

This story tells how driving instructor Alan Taylor, 51, admitted to having no insurance when he appeared in front of magistrates on December 6. He was driving an uninsured car back from the garage when he was stopped by police.

Now, I’m not defending him, but when you read the story it doesn’t look like he did it deliberately – it was just bloody silly, really. Yes, it’s his own fault, but he’s not like the trash who purposely don’t even consider buying insurance and yet who still drive.

Taylor had told the court that he could get stricken from the Register and lose his job as the minimum penalty for having no insurance is 6 points. The court listened and then awarded him six points. The story doesn’t say if he’s been taken off the Register.

So, this bloke who made what appears to be a stupid mistake may well lose his entire livelihood. I’m again reminded of the little scumbag, Callum Lines, in a recent story who basically lost nothing by driving like a maniac – without a licence or insurance – to evade police who tried to stop him.

The lack of intelligence frequently demonstrated by English Law is truly staggering.

Gordon William Dyche tried to overtake a two cars that were slowing down, with the front one signalling to turn right, ran into one of them, and shunted it into a reservoir. Four of the occupants died as a result (two of whom were only 14-years old). Dyche was “in a hurry” at the time.

Dyche was jailed for four years in August, but had appealed on the grounds that he was “treated too harshly”.

The appeal was rejected on the obvious grounds that no normal, safe driver would have tried to overtake a car that was slowing down and signalling – and that four people lost their lives as a result.

Quite right, too. And a perfect illustration of what being impatient and “in a rush” can do.

I know the two crimes are considerably different, but even so you can’t help wonder at the paltry sentence handed down to that teenage tosser in the last story when you see one like this.

Colin Smith, 42, was stopped by police when they saw his 38-ton lorry weaving on the M90 in Scotland. He was about a quarter of the way into a 180 mile journey, but when breathalysed was found to be more than four times the legal limit. He’d been stopped for an identical offence only a few weeks previously!

He reckoned he was over the limit because of a heavy session the night before. It doesn’t say what time he was picked up, but if that were true then he must have drunk more than 30 pints! That would be enough to kill a normal gorilla.

He was jailed for four months and banned for 66 months (nearly 3 years).

One would hope that the idiot never gets another job driving lorries if he is so irresponsible. It’s hard to imagine what he could have done to innocent drivers in the condition he was in – but to do it twice just takes it to another level.

Callum Lines in that last story should consider himself lucky he lives in a place where you don’t really get punished for breaking the law. And he should never even think of moving to Scotland. They do things properly up there.