Meeting of the Parliament 18 November 2014
As a veteran road safety campaigner, I very much welcome the debate this afternoon and, of course, I will be supporting the Scottish Government’s motion.
I will focus my remarks on young driver safety. It is appropriate that we are having this debate in road safety week. I will begin by reading part of a blog that was posted by the best friend of a drink-driver. It states:
“We all enjoy our nights out but my mate takes it way too far, he’s never aggressive or anything when he’s drunk but last Friday night was the tipping point for many of us that go out.
We found out that after 18 pints of Caffreys, 10 JD & Cokes and various shots of liqueurs that he actually drove the 3 miles home. All that started at 5pm and ended at 4am.
This has got to stop, if he’d hit anyone or anything then he would never have known about it.”
The blog went on:
“My take on it is that if he is stupid enough to do it then he will have to face the consequences, but it’s not just him that would suffer ... So would his wife, his three kids and god forbid the poor ... family of the person that he hits.”
Having spent years campaigning for driver safety, I have learned a lot about the tragedies that are involved in drink driving and have spent a lot of time thinking about the solutions to this crucial aspect of driver safety. The trigger for me was the tragic death of two 17-year-olds in March 2010, which were directly linked to drink driving.
It is a truism that is not depleted by repetition that there is no greater tragedy, no greater sorrow and no greater loss than for a parent to lose a child. That tragedy in the Highlands led me to set up a local group called the north of Scotland driver awareness team, which led to local campaigns in the Highlands and Islands called sensible driving, always arriving.
Although drink driving appears to be a single issue, as many members have mentioned it is in fact a diverse problem that includes various dimensions such as alcohol abuse, underage drinking and other social concerns, as identified in the North review and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence report of 2010. Therefore, the solutions need to be equally intricate and wide-ranging. The issue demands a comprehensive, creative and flexible approach.