Ant McPartlin

mudslide73

Now it's all out in the open I hope he can move on. His hiding of it all can come to an end now so I hope he can sort himself out. I know two people who's dad's were killed by drink drivers.. the long term effects are completely devastating on endless numbers of levels. It's all so avoidable and no amount of punishment can undo it.  

EricTheWeary

Iamnobody said:

Rocker said:

There is absolutely no excuse for drink driving. Even if "only" one drink was consumed. No excuse acceptable.

In your eyes - but the law permits a certain level of alcohol to be in a drivers system,which in most adults would be more than one drink.

I agree with you though that drinking when over the limit isn’t acceptable.

I guess the biggest problem is how do you know if you are over the limit ot not?

I don’t agree with zero tolerance as tiny traces of alcohol could be in the blood from days before or alcohol could be used in food without you thinking or knowing about it.

Ant and Dec seems a decent bloke who’s just hit rock bottom. Glad he hasn’t seriously hurt anyone else or himself yet and hopefully this is the trigger to get his shit together.

There are quite a few countries with zero tolerance policies, in practice it’s not a zero limit just a very low one so the sherry trifle you had last night might register something but not enough to lose your licence.
 Wether they meant it or not many of the people I worked with who had been done for drink driving were in favour of ‘zero’ limits as having taken a gamble and lost they would have known not to gamble. The U.K. drink driving law is dated and confusing, it surprises me that since 1967no one has made the easy political win of changing it ( it’s a lower limit in Scotland of course, which just adds to the confusion). 
Where @Rocker is they have a lower limit than the U.K. and a two step approach - there is a lower limit for bus drivers than private motorists for example. 
In France you could know if you are over the limit as they passed a law making it compulsory to have a breathalyser kit in the car but it has apparently never been enforced. 

crunchman

EricTheWeary said:

There are quite a few countries with zero tolerance policies, in practice it’s not a zero limit just a very low one so the sherry trifle you had last night might register something but not enough to lose your licence.
 Wether they meant it or not many of the people I worked with who had been done for drink driving were in favour of ‘zero’ limits as having taken a gamble and lost they would have known not to gamble. The U.K. drink driving law is dated and confusing, it surprises me that since 1967no one has made the easy political win of changing it ( it’s a lower limit in Scotland of course, which just adds to the confusion). 
Where @Rocker is they have a lower limit than the U.K. and a two step approach - there is a lower limit for bus drivers than private motorists for example. 
In France you could know if you are over the limit as they passed a law making it compulsory to have a breathalyser kit in the car but it has apparently never been enforced. 

I don't think it is a legal requirement, but I know London Underground have a zero tolerance for their staff.  That does mean you have to be very careful what you drink the night before you turn up for work.

If you have 4 or 5 pints the night before, you are likely to be under the drink drive limit, but turn up to drive an LU train, or operate the signals, and you would get sacked instantly if you were caught.  There used to be random testing as well - not sure if there still is.

I would be in favour of reducing the limit from the current 80mg per 100ml of blood.  Putting it down to 50 mg like a lot of other countries would be a sensible move.

With the law as it is now, I will sometimes have a pint with a meal and drive if it's somewhere local.  I wouldn't ever do a long journey after drinking.  I'm pretty certain I've never driven while over the limit, but at the same time if the limit was reduced, I wouldn't even have the one, which would probably be a good thing.

AlexC

The reason this thread exists is because the guy is famous. Open any local paper and in the Court section you’ll find how many people up for drink driving? It could be a ‘one off’ offence (they were careless/thoughtless),it could be because they are alcoholics. Whatever the reason of the individual Ant’s case has made the front page and got people talking. I’m not saying that’s a good thing in itself, but in our (sadly) celebrity obsessed ‘culture’ if this stops even one person from doing the same thing then... we’ll, you know what I’m saying. No - drink driving is not acceptable. Yes - people need to be made aware of that.

EricTheWeary

crunchman said:

EricTheWeary said:

There are quite a few countries with zero tolerance policies, in practice it’s not a zero limit just a very low one so the sherry trifle you had last night might register something but not enough to lose your licence.
 Wether they meant it or not many of the people I worked with who had been done for drink driving were in favour of ‘zero’ limits as having taken a gamble and lost they would have known not to gamble. The U.K. drink driving law is dated and confusing, it surprises me that since 1967no one has made the easy political win of changing it ( it’s a lower limit in Scotland of course, which just adds to the confusion). 
Where @Rocker is they have a lower limit than the U.K. and a two step approach - there is a lower limit for bus drivers than private motorists for example. 
In France you could know if you are over the limit as they passed a law making it compulsory to have a breathalyser kit in the car but it has apparently never been enforced. 

I don't think it is a legal requirement, but I know London Underground have a zero tolerance for their staff.  That does mean you have to be very careful what you drink the night before you turn up for work.

If you have 4 or 5 pints the night before, you are likely to be under the drink drive limit, but turn up to drive an LU train, or operate the signals, and you would get sacked instantly if you were caught.  There used to be random testing as well - not sure if there still is.

I would be in favour of reducing the limit from the current 80mg per 100ml of blood.  Putting it down to 50 mg like a lot of other countries would be a sensible move.

With the law as it is now, I will sometimes have a pint with a meal and drive if it's somewhere local.  I wouldn't ever do a long journey after drinking.  I'm pretty certain I've never driven while over the limit, but at the same time if the limit was reduced, I wouldn't even have the one, which would probably be a good thing.

Sorry, I was being a bit vague - Rocker lives in Eire and they have a two tier system as I understand it. So professional drivers like bus drivers have a lower limit than private car users have. If it’s a bus driver on his day off I... I have no idea. 
It’s 50mg in Scotland so having the rest of the U.K. fall in line with that seems simple enough to achieve - one strong drink would put most people over the limit- and tidies things up a bit. 

Rocker

My intolerance of drink driving is as a result of being the victim of a hit and run drunk driver. I suffered serious life changing injuries as a result of his drinking. The injuries are permanent and affect me every day. I do not want anyone else to have to endure what I go through on a daily basis.

TBH I never heard of the guy Ant whateveritis but fines (with an automatic driving disqualification) ought to be linked to the offenders salary. As it appears happened in this case. Bravo Courts.

Snap

tbh I felt a bit sorry for Ant. Yes, what he's done is bad, and rightly deserves the punishment, but the fella clearly has some serious problems. I hope he sorts it out.

Drinking & driving - no excuse, and if you are driving, I don't see any problem with it being a limit of virtually nothing. If you drive, stay off the booze. There are plenty of taxis around if you want to drink

Placidcasual79

DLM said:

Placidcasual79 said:

Drink driving is abdominal isn't it?

@Placidcasual79 Yes. Makes me sick to the stomach every time I read about it.

Lol - I'll tell you whats 'abdominal' my spelling!!! 

DLM

http://www.commonsenseevaluation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-Abdominal-Snowman.jpg