Subscribe to RSSJoyce On 2 Drinks Campaign
Transport minister Steven Joyce repeated today that he needed more information before pushing for a change in the blood alcohol limit allowed.
And asked by Labour in parliament why he was not supporting a current newspaper campaign promoting drivers having only 2 alcohol drinks, he said: “As the Minister whose job is to make these sorts of decisions, signing up to public campaigns is probably not a way to show people that Ministers bring an open mind to these decisions when they make them.”
He added that public opinion surveys over the years have shown a disconnect between those surveys that discuss the number of drinks someone drinks, versus what they think the adult blood-alcohol limit should be lowered to.
“I have consistently stated that we need an enduring consensus for road law changes, and we need to know the actual level of harm caused by drivers with a blood-alcohol level between 0.05 and 0.08. The reality is that we do not have that information currently, but with the law change that is currently in front of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee as part of the amendment bill for land transport safety, we will.
A newspaper campaign says we should commit to 2 beers only before driving.
3 Comments
Obviously he isn’t interested because if such a law came into effect, there would be no one there to pay with his extensive roadset.
So we will either find out that New Zealanders are a non-human species, or that all the hundreds of other studies worldwide were right. Worth a couple dozen dead people, isn’t it?
Shame Joyce doesn’t bring that open mind of his to public transport funding. Or can his mind only be open on one topic at a time?