Irish county councilors support drink-driving ‘in moderation’

Brian Johnston noticed this item in a website describing a decision by county councilors in Kerry, Ireland to allow residents of their area to drive after ‘two or three’ drinks. The motion calls on the Minister for Justice to enable police “to issue permits to people in the most isolated parts of the country to allow them to drive after drinking some alcohol.” The idea was to help people who are isolated and “who end up at home looking at the four walls, night in and night out, because they don’t want to take the risk of losing their licence”. The “reasoning” continued “…on the roads I’m talking about, you couldn’t do any more than 20 or 30 miles per hour and it’s not a big deal.” It goes on: “… (those) being isolated at present, all the wisdom and all the wit and all the culture that they had, the music and the singing, that’s all being lost to the younger generation because these older people might as well be living in Japan and Jerusalem because the younger generation don’t see them at all anymore.” Apart from this seemingly bizarre reason, it is ironic that the report goes on to note that the fatality rate on Irish roads have fallen over the past five years with the introduction of lower alcohol limits for drivers and alcohol checkpoints. It is also noteworthy that a link at the bottom of the report takes the reader to a site showing that 13% of Irish drivers have travelled over the blood alcohol limit. So i have no difficulty pronouncing this proposal ‘daft’. The only question that remains is – what prompted our editor to visit this website?

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