Ireland AM's Drink Driving Test

Nuttzz

I think motors is better for this than TV

This morning while watching ireland AM (I know) they decided to have a drink driving test where the got that annoying prat Aidan Cooney to drive a car around some bollards and then try the same thing after 3 pints

So we had all the drama of him drinking and telling us after one pint how he was feeling the affects "already", they also had a Doctor, Road Safety expert and a paramedic, telling us the dangers of drink driving. He was regularly breathalysed after each pint.

Pint 1 he passed the breathalyzer test
Pint 2 he passed the breathalyzer test

Pint 3 he got into the car and drove around the same bollards doing a poorer job of driving, as you might expect. Cooney got out of the car and told us how he could really feel the effect of the booze, so the Road Safety expert gave him the breathalyzer again and the result......he passed. The experts looked sheeplishly at each other and only the end credits saved their embarassment

This whole thing especially Cooneys antics telling us "how bad he felt" undermined the drink drive campaign in my view. What it did prove (to me) was that a big lad like cooney could probably they they could risk 4-5 pints and get away with it.

What sort of message was that to be sending to people?

merlinsmerryman

Nuttzz wrote:

Pint 3 he got into the car and drove around the same bollards doing a poorer job of driving, as you might expect. Cooney got out of the car and told us how he could really feel the effect of the booze, so the Road Safety expert gave him the breathalyzer again and the result......he passed. The experts looked sheeplishly at each other and only the end credits saved their embarassment

This whole thing especially Cooneys antics telling us "how bad he felt" undermined the drink drive campaign in my view. What it did prove (to me) was that a big lad like cooney would probably risk 4-5 pints and get away with it.

What sort of message was that to be sending to people?

Not a very good message but I think they idea was a good one. Should have got Alan Hughes to do it(the alcohol would have had more effect given the size difference between the 2) watching him drinking 3 pints and then trying to drive would have been interesting.

Enii

Did they leave a bit of time between each pint before they did the test?

Nuttzz

Yes, about 15-20 minutes i think

flanzer

That's like something you'd see on RTE!!! Priceless.......but does undermine the whole campaign

Big Nelly

Gas if he knocked back a couple of double vodka's, a few aftershocks while drinking pints. Then hopped in car and started to do wheelies around the place. Hopped out and still passed. Not really but would show how stupid this was.

Why hadn't this setup so that he would fail. you think they would have an idea that on live TV that things never go right.

Also the whole epsiode is underminded by this thing of going on about "feeling" the affects after one pint. There isn't a person in the world that I know that starts to feel the affects after one pint. Myabe two and that would take a while for the actual alcohol to move throught your system. This is as bad as an Aussie soap where they have half a can and 20 secs later they can't walk and are getting sick so they have to go to hospital.

Please note I don't condone drink driving one bit. But most of the people that will be watching this are probably kids because everyone I know wouldnt have the time in morning to watch before work. So what kind of a sign does this give out? have a few pints and you can still drive home. This after the Garda have come out saying you can't even have one pint.

Terrible idea!

ferdi

like something on monty python, classic

ballooba

Has everyone forgotten about the blood test? If someone was clearly that drunk then they would be tested, no?

Ernie Ball

I feel the effects after one pint. I'm 6'2" and 13 stone. Not a huge drinker. I'd never get behind the wheel after even one pint. YMMV.

Nuttzz

Nuttzz wrote:

I think motors is better for this than TV

What sort of message was that to be sending to people?

Perhaps if he wasn't hamming it up by saying how much he felt affected by the booze he would have saved some blushes..

How long did they give him after he finished the drink to when they tested him?

Doesn't it take a while for the alcohol to be detected on the breath?

kdevitt

ronoc wrote:

Perhaps if he wasn't hamming it up by saying how much he felt affected by the booze he would have saved some blushes..

How long did they give him after he finished the drink to when they tested him?

Doesn't it take a while for the alcohol to be detected on the breath?

Alcohol is detected on the breath instantly - I tested it it with a breathilizer one evening at home. Was straight over the limit after a sip of vodka - because its still in your mouth. Two very generous vodkas, and half an hour before trying again, I was under the limit

stevenmu

When they bring you to a garda station for a blood test, they make you wait 20 minutes first. Afaik, once it's in your blood, it should show up in a breath test, when your lungs are exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen in your blood some of the alcohol gets released with it, this is what the machine measures.

Dilbert75

If you look at it the other way around, the "experiment" showed that even though you have only 3 pints over the space of an hour and a half or whatever, and still pass the breathalyser, your level of control & standard of driving do diminish noticeably.

gurramok

Dilbert75 wrote:

If you look at it the other way around, the "experiment" showed that even though you have only 3 pints over the space of an hour and a half or whatever, and still pass the breathalyser, your level of control & standard of driving do diminish noticeably.

It don't mention also the pints %, drinking 2 4.3% pints is weaker on the system than drinking 2 5% pints

BrianD

Big Nelly wrote:

Also the whole epsiode is underminded by this thing of going on about "feeling" the affects after one pint. There isn't a person in the world that I know that starts to feel the affects after one pint. Myabe two and that would take a while for the actual alcohol to move throught your system. This is as bad as an Aussie soap where they have half a can and 20 secs later they can't walk and are getting sick so they have to go to hospital.

Interesting because I drink spirits only - gin, JD, wine etc. As you say, you don't feel the effect immediately. However, if I drink one pint of beer I can feel the effects immediately and I certainly feel different.

It certainly undermines the "one drink" campaign. For the average person, I speculate that they don't "feel" any different and there lies the temptation to go for a second etc. I suspect that the relationship between the number of drinks and how drunk you are is not linear.

It would have been fairer if they put a number of different people through the test - male/female and different build. The law has to go with the worst case scenario and there will always be guys who can put away a substantial number of beverages and still pass a breath test.

One thing I noticed in NZ was information on sensible drinking and not a campaign driven on the fear factor. They had posters in bars and restaurants exploding some of the myths about alcohol consumption e.g. drinking coffee will sober you up etc. They had good (and sometime obvious) pointers e.g. eat a meal or that a unit of alcohol takes about one hour to pass through your system. all sensible stuff but ignored in favour of the fear factor.

Seth Brundle

interesting story:-
I used to give blood and now give platlets. When you give blood, you can only give blood once every three months and not a day sooner. Im was at the awards the other night for making 50 donations. Anyhow the CEO of IBTS was giving a speech and towards the end where he was hoping everyone wouldn't DUI he told this story.
Seemingly a few years ago he got a call from the gardai asking if the story of someone they arrested the night before was true. Seemingly the person was suspected of DUI and volunteered to give a blood sample at the station but when they got there he claimed that he couldn't give a blood sample as it was not past his 90 day donation period. Seemingly the gardai couldn't do anything until they recieved advice from someone in IBTS which was several hours later.

Boggle

And what was the outcome? Should he have given the sample or did he get away with it??

Eoin

Big Nelly wrote:

Also the whole epsiode is underminded by this thing of going on about "feeling" the affects after one pint. There isn't a person in the world that I know that starts to feel the affects after one pint. Myabe two and that would take a while for the actual alcohol to move throught your system. This is as bad as an Aussie soap where they have half a can and 20 secs later they can't walk and are getting sick so they have to go to hospital.

I dunno, I might feel the effects of just one pint if I was feeling tired (after a game, or after a long day at the office). And I'm not the skinniest either.

Anyway, what if you look at the result from the other angle - i.e. the guy may not have been legally over the limit, but his ability to drive was still impaired. Is this not the very point of the campaign?

Seth Brundle

Boggle wrote:

And what was the outcome? Should he have given the sample or did he get away with it??

He didn't really say but did say that in theory there was a 90 day non donating rule which could be interpreted [abused!] so that you could avoid the garda test. The fact that the Gardai had to wait until the following morning suggests that by the time he was tested his blood may have been clear.

Preset No.3

merlinsmerryman wrote:

Should have got Alan Hughes to do it(the alcohol would have had more effect given the size difference between the 2)

Having seen wee alan out and about, he can really put away the drink as can Aidan Cooney. I think they should have just got a member of the public. Years of them working in TV and radio builds up the resistence to alcohol!

dahamsta

merlinsmerryman wrote:

Not a very good message but I think they idea was a good one.

About as far from an "idea" as you could get. I've seen this done at least twice on British television, one of them probably two years ago. Irish media producers couldn't come up with an idea if you held a gun to their head. And if anyone should have a gun held to their head...

unkel

BrianD wrote:

Interesting because I drink spirits only - gin, JD, wine etc. As you say, you don't feel the effect immediately. However, if I drink one pint of beer I can feel the effects immediately and I certainly feel different

That's because there is almost twice the amount of alcohol in a pint of low strength lager compared to a standard serving of spirits or wine (mind one of those small bottles of wine is the same as a pint)

BrianD wrote:

It would have been fairer if they put a number of different people through the test - male/female and different build. The law has to go with the worst case scenario and there will always be guys who can put away a substantial number of beverages and still pass a breath test

Absolutely. Weight and sex (amongst other factors, like how much a person is used to drinking) make a huge difference. There are on-line calculators which will give you an indication of your blood-alcohol level if you feed them some data

kbannon wrote:

he claimed that he couldn't give a blood sample as it was not past his 90 day donation period

LOL, he might have fooled the poor old Guard. Giving a few ml bloodsample is not exactly like giving blood which is about half a liter