NCJ Number
150792
Date Published
1994
Length
210 pages
Annotation
This book traces the history of British law pertinent to drink-driving from the late 19th Century through 1992 and analyzes the failure of reform.
Abstract
The author notes that the history of legal policy and the drink-driver has had long periods of inattention interspersed with several periods of intense legislative activity. The latter periods are apparent at the end of the 1920's, in the 1960's, at the end of the 1970's, and in the later 1980's. Each period has been followed by law reform: the Road Traffic Act 1930, the Road Safety Act 1967, the Transport Act 1981, and the Road Traffic Act 1991. By the 1960's, a general consensus had emerged, founded on the scientific and technical developments of the previous 30 years, for effective countermeasures for drink-driving; the 1967 act sought to implement the proposed reforms. During the 1970's, this consensus began to fade; the result was that reforms suggested in this period were only partly implemented and only after a 7-year wait. This process continued during the 1980's; the only significant change in the law was the creation of a new offense of causing death under the 1991 act. Reasons for this waning of legislative efforts to counter drink-driving include the ineffectiveness of simple deterrence, a backlash against efforts to manipulate public attitudes toward drink-driving, contradictions in information on drink-driving, the public's reluctance to view the drink-driver as an "enemy," and the lowering of blood-alcohol concentrations would widen the net of the criminal justice system unacceptably. 10 tables, 696-item bibliography, and subject index