O/T Is drink/drug driving on the up again in Rotherham?

[gm_gm]

It's a bit of a cop out to blame soft laws for two reasons.

1. Our laws aren't soft. We send a larger proportion of our population to prison than most other European countries - about twice as many as Germany and a third more than France for example.

2. It's societal and individual attitudes that say that drink driving is okay. We have all sat in the pub with someone playing the numbers game - trying to work out how many drinks they can have whilst staying under the limit. How many of us have challenged that behaviour, which tacitally accepts that drink driving is ok provided that you try to keep your alcohol level below an arbitrary limit? How many of us have done it ourselves?

Where English law is soft is on the permitted alcohol level - 80mg/100ml of blood compared to 50mg or lower in the rest of Europe, So our arbitrary limit is significantly higher than the rest of Europe's

Could it be we catch twice as many and therefore prosecute twice as many OR do other countries let twice as many off at court stage?

[KerrAvon]

Could it be we catch twice as many and therefore prosecute twice as many OR do other countries let twice as many off at court stage?

Neither or both might be factors.

Neither would support a 'soft laws' argument.