Minimum drinking age of 21 saves lives, study finds

[avgas]

Imagine no ACC etc - THEN how much would it cost for individual accidenr/injury insurance.??

about $500-$1500 per year depending on you 'activities', ACC doesn't sound so cheap when you do the figures.

[sidecar bob]

Shall we all go to Paris then? Research the legislative impact ... very important before setting policy......

Sounds great, M.F.E paying again are they mate?

[BIHB@0610]

Sounds great, M.F.E paying again are they mate?

Not for you hehe guess we will just have to do some research in Christchurch this weekend with Joni

[scumdog]

about $500-$1500 per year depending on you 'activities', ACC doesn't sound so cheap when you do the figures.

Hmm, a private company and no competition ....and mutiple claims...I'd like to see how the figure add up then.

[avgas]

Hmm, a private company and no competition ....and mutiple claims...I'd like to see how the figure add up then.

I dont see people crashing cars just cos they have insurance????? yet it seems perfectly fine to "be a man" and get yourself into all sorts of shit.
Safety net? or hammock?

[scumdog]

I dont see people crashing cars just cos they have insurance????? yet it seems perfectly fine to "be a man" and get yourself into all sorts of shit.
Safety net? or hammock?

Noooo...but you do see habitual bike-binners, rugby injured and other similar repeat claimers of ACC..

[slofox]

the clubs are a lot stricter on ID than Liquor stores.
.

Not my liquor store they ain't...........

[Dakara]

Not my liquor store they ain't...........

Haha

At the ripe old age of 25, I get asked for I.D. 99% of the time upon entrance to a club where the doorman don't know me, casual bars virtually never, and I think the last time I was asked for it at a bottle store I was 16 and managed to talk my way out of it.

My Local supermarket has the right attitude though, the cashie cant sell Alcohol or ciggies without imputing my D/L number and getting the manager to swipe their card.... although after a while starts to get a tad annoying.

[Jeremy]

Did anyone else read the report and think it was an obvious as that banning bread reduces the number of bread related injuries?

Sure raising the drinking limit to 21 is going to reduce the number of alcohol related accidents in the age group under 21.

It gets the results, but in the most stupid way. If you ever apply logic like this you might as well blanket apply it. Raise the drinking age to 90, and you'd be certain to see a reduction in the alcohol related accidents in the under 90 age group...
But see you wouldn't be very happy with that would you?

Why not ban beer and wine? Surely you'd find that they were involved in most alcohol related crashes. How about banning bread? I'd imagine most murderers ate it the same week they killed someone.

I could go down the road, buy a bottle of Absolut Vodka. Drink the entire bottle at once. Drive home.

Which point did it go wrong? Obviously it wasn't purchasing the bottle. By itself drinking the bottle has few adverse effects other than that if I don't drink a considerable amount of water along with it I'll feel terrible in the morning. It was the point where I decided to drive when it was unsafe to do so.

If you really want to make a difference, start saying that it's wrong to have a SINGLE glass of wine and drive home. Because that impairs your ability to drive. Don't start making excuses, start getting really serious about this if you think it's that important. Why is it suitable to drive a car under situations where it would not be considered safe to pilot an aircraft? Raise the bar if you're really concerned about the safety of these things. Start considering that if you wouldn't consider it suitable for someone else, why on earth would you consider it okay behaviour for yourself?

If someone told me that tomorrow that the maximum blood alcohol limit for everyone was going to be the same as a 15 year old, I'd be perfectly fine with that. Can you give me one good reason why you're not happy with that?

If you can't do it, why the hell do you expect them to?

[Sanx]

The bread analogy is a bit daft for one very simple reason; eating bread does not impair one's ability to drive. Drinking alcohol does.

But the majority of the points you raised are entirely right; raising the drinking age will have absolutely zero effect on the drink-drive incidents. The under-21s who want to drink will obtain alcohol from other places and drink it regardless. Evidence from countries that already have high legal drinking ages shows this; with supporting evidence that lowering the age makes alcohol consumption less of a rebellious act, and therefore something that isn't done to impress.

One method of reducing drink drive rates would be to lower the acceptable blood alcohol level down to a level that effectively means you cannot have a drink and drive, rather than the existing system whereby you can have a beer or maybe two, possibly three, before being rendered unfit to drive.

I have no evidence for this, but I imagine that many drink drive convictions are not the recidivist drunk driver types, but plain ordinary Joes who had a couple of drinks after work and thought they were OK to drive home. Doesn't take much mis-calculation to go from being just under the limit and pretty much sober to a bit over the limit and a little bit impaired. Obviously, this change would have to co-incide with an education campaign aimed at re-inforcing the message that one drink = conviction. Increased enforcement during the same period (and possibly in the run up to it) would also pay dividends, especially if enforcement was targetted towards educating people in a positive way.

Take this for example. The law is passed to make any blood / breath alcohol level illegal. The date on which the new rules come into force, say three months from the time the amendment to the Land Transport Act is passed, is heavily advertised on television, radio and in print. In the preceeding thress months, the cops step up their anti-drink drive enforcement campaign. Where drivers are detected with alcohol on their breath, and the evidentiary breath alcohol test shows them to be existing under the limit, they are not prosecuted (obviously; they've done nothing illegal) but are told that as of the date the new rules will come into force, had they been caught in identical circumstances, they'd be prosecuted, face loss of licence, plus increased insurance costs etc. Some leniency may be shown after the date too, so the rule change comes acros not as an excuse for the cops to remove licences and generate revenue, but a safety measure.

There could also be some more measures taken:

• Free shuttle buses back from clubs or entertainment areas, together with free parking for the cars of inebriated drivers.
• Many clubs stamp your hand on entry as a proof of age or entrance check. Have a designated driver stamp, entitling the driver to free drinks, but no alcohol.
• Double rego fees for anyone with a drink driving conviction, which expires five years after the date of the conviction. If no further conviction has been recorded, the excess is refunded.
• Make alcohol awareness courses easier to come by, along with mandatory (and enforced) attendance following a drink drive conviction.
• Jail for recidivist drivers. No home detention. No community service. Jail.
• Make presentation of ID to buy alcohol mandatory no matter the apparent age of the purchaser. Only NZ driving licence and proof of age card acceptable. Should a drink drive conviction (possibly more than just one conviction) be recorded against the person, that information is prominently displayed on the licence / proof of age card and no alcohol can be sold to that person. it won't stop them obtaining alcohol, but it will make it more difficult to obtain.

I'm sure there are more ideas out there too. Essentially the trick is to effect a culture change, as that's the only thing that will lower the drink drive rates, and therefore casualties, in the long term.

[slofox]

Haha

At the ripe old age of 25, I get asked for I.D. 99% of the time upon entrance to a club where the doorman don't know me, casual bars virtually never, and I think the last time I was asked for it at a bottle store I was 16 and managed to talk my way out of it.

My Local supermarket has the right attitude though, the cashie cant sell Alcohol or ciggies without imputing my D/L number and getting the manager to swipe their card.... although after a while starts to get a tad annoying.

I have ID'd 40 year olds a couple of times.........usually because of what they were wearing obscuring the face or something. One even had her daughter with her.....Often enough they feel great about it and I feel like a dork.... In fact, someone like myself cannot afford to take the risk. The DLA and local constabulary operate a lot of CPO's (read "stings") here and you really do not know if you are being entrapped or not - so you ask for ID. Personally I would like to see ALL purchases subject to ID (makes it easier for me...) but when I suggested this to a local MP (who wanted to raise the purchase age) he said "Oh I don't think the voters would like that!".......so he was more interested in votes than the "youth harm" he was banging on about.......funny that.....

[Sanx]

Personally I would like to see ALL purchases subject to ID (makes it easier for me...) but when I suggested this to a local MP (who wanted to raise the purchase age) he said "Oh I don't think the voters would like that!".......so he was more interested in votes than the "youth harm" he was banging on about.......funny that.....

Typical politician bullshit. Self-preservation and gravy-train continuance far more important about doing anything positive.

[slofox]

[*]Make presentation of ID to buy alcohol mandatory no matter the apparent age of the purchaser. Only NZ driving licence and proof of age card acceptable.

I agree about the mandatory ID. (see previous post). But I would have to say that the New Zealand driver's license is a very poor form of ID - mainly because the photo is not large enough nor clear enough. The pic is often years old as well and the holder can look very different. I had a license presented to me by a 21 year old female whose photo looked nothing like she did. Her hair was the opposite colour, length, curl etc etc. The photo had been taken when she was sixteen, so was totally out of date. Not good enough for positive ID. I used other cues to satisfy myself that she was legit and proceeded with the sale. At other times I have asked for a signature to compare with that on the license...much to the disgust of the holder but hey, it's MY livelihood, not theirs.....18+ card is much better but much rarer unfortunately....

[Sanx]

I agree about the mandatory ID. (see previous post). But I would have to say that the New Zealand driver's license is a very poor form of ID - mainly because the photo is not large enough nor clear enough. The pic is often years old as well and the holder can look very different. I had a license presented to me by a 21 year old female whose photo looked nothing like she did. Her hair was the opposite colour, length, curl etc etc. The photo had been taken when she was sixteen, so was totally out of date. Not good enough for positive ID. I used other cues to satisfy myself that she was legit and proceeded with the sale. At other times I have asked for a signature to compare with that on the license...much to the disgust of the holder but hey, it's MY livelihood, not theirs.....18+ card is much better but much rarer unfortunately....

The types of ID I stated were simply based upon what I thought might be most common. You're at the coal-face so you'd know for sure. But haven't the newer driving licences got a bigger photo, albeit with something overprinted on them?

[slofox]

I haven't seen one like that yet, but the embossing over the top is a pain in the arse, especially on the small formats. I also raised this issue with the politician and he wasn't very interested in that either...wanker....