One for the road.

Literally last night, in the chatbox, we started bringing up PSA/Public info videos... Like this one:

[Warning for the squeamish - this is pretty brutal... All these videos are]




This morning, I wake up to see this:

Quote :

Irish council in Kerry bid to relax drink-drive limit

Link

Quote :

Councillors in south-west Ireland have backed a plan to relax the drink-drive limits for some isolated constituents.

The motion backed by Kerry county councillors would allow police to issue permits overriding the legal limit.

Councillor Danny Healy-Rae, who proposed the motion, said it would apply to "older people" who "are being isolated now at home, and a lot of them falling into depression".

The Irish Drink-Drive videos, provided by Cy, were among the more horrific of the ones we came across.

Like this one:

Quote :

Mr Healy-Rae said the current drink-driving rules were forcing an older generation to stay at home.

[...]

Mr Healy-Rae told The Journal the people he thought could apply for the permits "are living in isolated rural areas where there's no public transport of any kind, and they 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."

What? Go out and be sociable, NOT drink alcohol? What is this bizarre behaviour of which you speak?

Quote :

In 2011, the maximum blood-alcohol limit in Ireland was reduced from 80mg per 100ml of blood - the same as the UK legal limit, one of the highest in the world - to 50mg for most drivers.

I didn't even know this... Wow...

Quote :

"Those in rural areas who may be suffering from isolation will not benefit from putting their lives and the lives of the other members of their community at risk by drinking and driving," Mr Cullen said.

"Also, it should be noted that the link between alcohol use and suicide has been well established and drinking alcohol will exacerbate not alleviate any mental health difficulties that a person may be struggling with, such as depression or anxiety."

Haha wow logic.

Although I watched a PSA last night that straight-up said that older, more experianced drivers could handle driving while intoxicated better than teens. Haha, obvs we should just raise the limit on old people! Alcohol all the time oldies-farts, you got nothin else to live for!!

Honestly DUI laws are getting kinda ridiculous without doing anything about the problem, but a politician who suggests anything other than further decreasing the limit will have to explain why he's "soft on drunk drivers."

It's the same with drug laws, to some degree (weed is in a weird place right now).

Mr.Doobie wrote:

(weed is in a weird place right now).

Haha man if you ever have any pot at all better not drive because fuck only knows how much thc you have in your system and you barely need any to get arrested for it. What is that you say, perfectly trust-worthy police officer, you are only going to pull over and do drug tests on people who are driving as if they are high? Oh well great, I guess us whities can continue to do all the pot we want and you get to continue on arresting black people for driving like always. Win-win!!

This is typical of Irish local politics. They aren't investigating the possibilities of setting up a community shuttlebus scheme for elderly people in rural areas, because that's complicated and costs money and not everyone would buy into it or avail of it. No no, let's push for permits so that elderly drivers can have more drink because that will get us re-elected. Did they make any attempts to implement accessibility programmes and initiatives for the elderly back during the boom when we had money for these things? Or were they all too busy leaning on local authorities to grant planning permission to every Tom Dick and Harry?