""I'm not totally convinced of the need for a lower limit.""

Like Leveller, I'm not convinced.

Let me emphasise that I hold no brief for drink drivers, and would like to see second offenders banned for ten years, and three strikes meaning "out for life".

However, I have reservations about this new suggestion.

We are told that the reduction from 80 to 50 will save 150 lives annually.

The implication is that 150 people die in motor related incidents where one party has an alcohol level more than 50 and less than the legal limit. What is not made clear, is whether that person actually caused the accident.

If yes, then the conclusion drawn is essentially correct. If no, then the whole argument falls apart.

Where the other party was responsible, that life would not have been saved by a lower limit, and unless we are given chapter and verse on what percentage of those with alcohol between 50 and 80 were adjudged to be culpably responsible for the incident, we can place little or no value on the conclusions drawn.

If the same knee jerk reaction is giving rise to these claims, as the one which finds drunk drivers automatically responsible for an accident, even when somebody runs into the back of them at red traffic lights, then the credibility of those operating the survey is called into question.

Don T.