The drink-drive limit in Scotland will be lowered “as a priority”, the Scottish Government has said (BBC News).
Mr MacAskill said: “The Scottish Government has long called for a reduction in the drink-driving limit to 50mg.
“We strongly believe that reducing the drink-driving limit will save lives, and evidence from across Europe shows that alcohol-related road deaths drop dramatically where the limit has been reduced.”
The power to change the limit, under the 2012 Scotland Act, recently received royal assent. Willie Rennie, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, has urged ministers to make use of the new powers as soon as possible, BBC News reports.
He said: “The new powers devolved under the Scotland Bill present us with some fantastic opportunities to shape the Scotland we want to live in.”
Lewis Macdonald, Scottish Labour’s justice spokesman, said: “This is a welcome development and something I called for several weeks ago. We need to get the details right, but the SNP will have our support on the issue as the Scottish Parliament works through the fine print.”
Jackson Carlaw, Scottish Conservative deputy leader, also welcomed the proposals, saying: “We believe that everything should be done to reduce road deaths caused directly by alcohol.”
Click here to read the full BBC News report.
Its about time the government had the nouse to say no drinking and driving. Let’s have a zero tolerance to alcohol and let that be the end of it, but they won’t cause they are scared of doing what’s right for fear of being ill thought of. They will have a lot, a lot, of support for zero alcohol.
bob craven Lancs
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I agree too Susan. It also goes without saying that the Police need to be present on the roadside to enforce this new limit. Otherwise those who continue to drink drive may still get away with it. In my opinion, I also think publicity and education of this new limit needs to be high too. I know alcohol effects everyone differently and the only safe option is not to drink any alcohol before driving, but you will get people arguing they did not realise how much alcohol you can drink at the ‘new limit’. It will be interesting to see if our government follows.
Mike, from http://dontbethatsomeone.co.uk (London)
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Susan, RoadDriver absolutely agrees and supports your stance on this issue.
Charles Dunn RoadDriver.co.uk
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Different drink drive levels for England and Wales? Surely the safest and most responsible thing for this Govt to do is reduce the DD limit UK wide as well as provide adequate resources to the police service as whole to patrol and catch drink driving offenders rigidly across all borders?
Susan, Northamptonshire
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