S4M-04627 Drink-driving

The Presiding Officer (Tricia Marwick): Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is a debate on motion S4M-04627, in the name of Kenny MacAskill, on drink-driving.

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Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP):

I draw members’ attention to my membership of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, which is an organisation that is interested in training drivers for safety.

We now have the ability to change the legal alcohol limit for drivers in Scotland and we can all clearly identify that drink-driving is an obvious hazard. When we combine that with our rather unpredictable weather on dark roads during Scotland’s winters, we have a toxic mix that we need to tak tent of. Less alcohol in the bloodstream of fewer drivers equals fewer accidents and deaths. Therefore, changing the legal blood alcohol content levels from 80mg to 50mg per 100ml of blood will deliver much at little cost and with no real inconvenience. That is a positive change that I and many others—that is clear from the debate—have supported for a long time.

Countless stories can be told of loss, pain, death and injury resulting from the impairing effects of alcohol on drivers, such as reduced co-ordination, slowed motor skills, blurred vision and poor judgment. We have the opportunity for Scotland to take the lead, just as the Labour-led Administration—to its eternal credit—took the lead with smoking.

The BMA tells us that driving becomes considerably more risky once the alcohol level rises above 50mg per 100ml of blood. Despite a 10 times greater risk than there is with sobriety, we currently let drivers at the 80mg level into cars to drive legally on our streets.

What would a reduction really mean? At 50mg, the crash risk would be dramatically reduced, to a fifth of that at 80mg. That is still double the risk for a non-drinking driver, but it is an enormous advance on the current arrangement. Risk rises steeply with increasing alcohol in the bloodstream. The rest of Europe and a good percentage of the rest of the world have lowered the levels, and it is time that we did so.

A report that was provided by the International Center for Alcohol Policies demonstrates that, in Austria, Denmark, the United States and Sweden, there was a decrease

“in the number of reported drink-drive trips and injurious or fatal accidents after BAC levels were lowered”.

We know that doing that works.

Lewis Macdonald had a little bit to say about devolution. Devolution is not the core of the debate. Let us do what we can, but it might be useful if whole policy areas were handed over under devolution. As members know, I am in favour of the 100 per cent devolution of everything, but we are not debating that today. However, it would be simpler for the Administrations on both sides of the border if we conducted things in that way.

Richard Simpson made a thoughtful contribution, as ever, on health matters. He talked about France. I have just come back from France. There was a bit of confusion, as I had thought that I needed breathalysers in my hire car and was a bit disconcerted to find that they were not there. I am glad to have found that I was driving legally rather than in terror. I am also pleased to hear that Dennis Robertson does not drive, although I have twice participated in Grampian Society for the Blind’s driving day, when blind people and blindfolded members of the Scottish Parliament drive around a race track in a time trial. It is interesting to think about that.

Dennis Robertson: Will the member take an intervention?

Stewart Stevenson: Of course—if the member will promise that he will be seen driving some time soon.

Dennis Robertson: When the driving instructors at the Alford transport museum take their blind or blindfolded members round in the car, they have not been drinking.

Stewart Stevenson: Many of the blind drivers have displayed far greater skills than drivers with sight and lots of alcohol in their system have.

We had a history lesson from Richard Lyle. Like many GPs, my father, in the 1950s, used to test people who were brought in as potential drunks to see whether they could walk along a white line. It is clear that Richard Simpson remembers that happening as well. Thank goodness we have moved to a more scientific and much more objective basis of testing.

As we change the limit—as change it we must—we must have an education and information programme that gets home to the difficult-to-reach groups that are our driving recidivists. I use that phrase advisedly. We must be in a position in which nobody can in practice say, “I didnae ken.” That is never an excuse in law, and it must not be an excuse that people can deploy in practice. The International Center for Alcohol Policies has stated:

“heightened public awareness of drink-driving issues”

is

“largely responsible for decreases in drink-driving infractions following the lowering of”

limits. That is an important point that we need to take account of.

I caution Alex Johnstone, who I think is getting confused about statistics. Of course the risk of people who are three or four times above the limit is dramatically higher—probably 50 times higher—than those who are sober, but that does not alter the fact that most people who are over the limit are near the limit. In numerical terms, those people are responsible for most of the accidents that we seek to reduce.

The world has changed. When my father was a GP in the 1950s, he could prescribe alcohol to his anaemic patients. We used to have samples of Sweetheart Stout and Guinness sitting in the surgery waiting to go out.

I will close with a few comments about aviation. It is worth saying that breathalysers in Scotland are already calibrated to test at the 20mg level. That information comes from answers to questions that I asked of the previous Executive in session 2. An additional requirement that is placed on pilots beyond the 20mg limit is that they are forbidden to drink for eight hours before they fly. Therefore, there are further measures that we can think about in future. I pose the question that, if we want pilots to be at that standard of safety, why would we get into a car with somebody who is operating at a lower safety standard? To save lives and ensure safe travel, we need lower levels and systematic breath testing. I am very happy to support the Government’s motion.

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