70% Of Motorists Supportive Of New Drink Driving Proposals – AA Ireland
Almost 70% of motorists are supportive of the proposed changes to the Road Traffic (Fixed Penalty-Drink Driving) Bill 2017, according to an AA Motor Insurance survey. The survey, which was conducted in April 2017, found that 47.36% of the 3,000 participants were very supportive of Shane Ross’ proposals.
Another 21% of respondents said that they were somewhat supportive of the new bill, which would see the blood alcohol level be lowered from 80mg per 100ml to between 50mg & 80mg instead. Conor Faughnan, Director of Consumer Affairs at the AA said: “Overall, just under 7 in 10 drivers surveyed were either very or somewhat supportive of these new laws being introduced. In the past, Ireland had a very relaxed attitude towards the issue of drink driving so it’s great to see public attitudes have changed and that recent efforts to educate people on the dangers of drink-driving have certainly played a role in this.”.
However, the AA Car Insurance survey also found that almost 40% of motorists had driven while under the influence of alcohol on at least one occasion.
30.65% of respondents stated that they had driven with alcohol in their system, albeit rarely, while a further 8.30% admitted to doing so on an occasional basis. Meanwhile, 0.51% of those surveyed stated that they had, in the past, driven with alcohol in their system on a regular basis.
“The link between alcohol and increased risk of being involved in an incident is beyond dispute and while recent efforts to highlight this have been successful, there is still work to be done,” Faughnan added. “However, it’s also important that we don’t congratulate ourselves for making the laws tougher on paper and think we’ve achieved something great in terms of road safety. While Minister Ross’ proposal is certainly welcome, when it comes to deterring people from drink-driving then having more Gardaí on our roads is an absolute must.”
AA members were seen to support the new proposal slightly more than those who aren’t AA members, with 48.70% of AA members being very supportive and 21.29% being somewhat supportive, in comparison to 41.54% of non AA members being very supportive and 20.22% of them being somewhat supportive.
