---

Road Safety

There is undoubtedly a case as to how the police are asked to prioritise their time. I do not want to go too far down that track, Madam Deputy Speaker, as this is not a police debate, but any element of the public sector—whether it is the police or local councils—will respond to the target-driven culture that we now have. If those targets are accurately and sensible chosen, that can be productive. Sometimes targets that are chosen end up with peculiar and distorting results. Some police forces have sought to increase the number of crimes detected in order to get their figures looking better, although the crimes they detect are sometimes very minor. They are not spending their time looking at more serious crimes about which the public are more worried. There can be that distortion, therefore. Drink-driving has been mentioned by several Members, and it is undoubtedly a serious issue. My gut feeling is that while it has became socially unacceptable over the past 30 or 40 years—we have come a long way from "one for the road," which is how things were back then—that good work is beginning to be unpicked a bit. The old ways are creeping back again, and people are beginning to think, "Well, we'll just chance it." That might be because either the consequences are diminishing or the horror adverts are not on television as much as they used to be, or perhaps because the fear of being caught, which is always a main driver—no pun intended—in deterring people, has lessened because they do not think they will be stopped by the police. However, the fact is that 16 per cent. of all road deaths involve a drink-driver; that is a 2007 figure. To pick up on a point made by the Committee Chairman, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside, drivers aged between 17 and 19 are 10 times more likely to have a drink-drive crash than drivers of other ages. Just for clarity, let me say that earlier I was not necessarily advocating an increase in the driving age to 18; I was merely genuinely asking about the Committee's view on the matter, because there is a legitimate discussion to be had on it. I believe there is a strong case for the drink-drive limit to be reduced from 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood to 50 mg. International comparisons reveal that our limit is shared by Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta, but the 0.5 mg per ml limit is much more common across Europe: it is the limit for Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. That is where the centre of gravity lies across the European Union—and some countries even have a lower limit than 0.5.