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    Drink-driving: If your chance of being caught is 1 in 77, where is the deterrent?
    Ireland

    Drink-driving: If your chance of being caught is 1 in 77, where is the deterrent?

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    21 Comments

    1. Successful-Bee-8911 on

      Lads it’s actually crazy how many people around my hometown still drink and drive. Not a worry in the world. Once you’re outside any major town, the chances of getting caught are non existent

    3. ChiralNavigator on

      I thought this was a very good article, Are men more likely to drink and drive or just more likely to get caught? *85% of those arrested are male. Half are under 35*

      It’s a shocking read: *Between 2020 and 2023, 37.74% of drink-driving cases that went to court were dismissed entirely. More than one in three. Dismissed*

      *Ireland has fewer than 9,000 people accessing alcohol treatment each year despite an estimated 500,000 living with Alcohol Use Disorder.*

    4. Soggy_Quarter9333 on

      The deterrent should be that you are a rational human being and know that alcohol will affect your driving ability. If you only don’t drink and drive for fear of being caught then you may need to re-evaluate you life priorities.

    5. Behemothslayer on

      Should start fitting breathalysers in cars, I’ve seen busses and coaches with them. Either that or make the consequences so severe that you can’t afford to go out and get pissed before driving

    6. Maester_Bates on

      When random breath testing first came in I was stopped almost every night driving home from the pub.

      They really made a point to stop anyone they saw driving late at night.

      I was driving home from working in the pub so most of the gardes knew me, a few times they sped off to pull over someone who drove past while they were testing me.

      Other than road tax and green diesel it was the only thing I ever saw them actively enforce. When did they stop?

    7. gary_d1 on

      This logic applies to all crime..
      Deterrence is if you do it frequently you’re more likely to be caught.. so better not to for you & society.
      Do you want somehow for this to be 100%?

    8. Specific-Athlete22 on

      Maybe drink driving should be part of the driving test. If there gonna do it atleast make sure there good at it.

    10. Mundane_Character365 on

      I don’t drink and drive. I live down a country road from the pubs, and have never seen the guards, so I think chances of me being caught is much lower than 1 in 77.

      For me the deterrent is the possibility of killing myself of someone else.

    11. Tall-Cucumber-2391 on

      I guess the risk of killing somebody, or yourself, I mean that is the deterrent anyway for any reasonable person. 
      If your only deterrent of risk of getting caught then you have a problem!

    12. thespuditron on

      The deterrent should really just be that it’s very fucking dangerous and you might kill someone else or yourself.

      Not that you might get caught and end up with points or no license.

    13. elhell on

      Killing other humans, often inexperienced children should be deterrence enough. Jailtime is the less severe pain such a case.

    14. PrincessCG on

      Not being responsible for killing someone or myself. I stress enough when driving sober. Can’t imagine doing it drunk.

    15. Prestigious-Side-286 on

      There was parts of some cities where you could guarantee there would be checkpoints every Friday night and Saturday/sunday morning when they introduced this first.

    16. phyneas on

      Well, when you are caught that 77th time, you’ll get a driving ban, and then you’ll have a one in god knows how much chance of being caught driving while banned and getting a suspended sentence, and then you’ll have a one in god knows how much chance of getting caught driving while banned and under a suspended sentence and end up with a double secret suspended sentence, and then you’ll have a one in god knows how much chance of getting caught driving while banned and under a suspended sentence and under a double secret suspended sentence and then you’ll get a frown from the judge along with your next suspended sentence. So is it really worth the risk, I ask you?

    18. keeko847 on

      1 in 77 is still pretty high risk given the consequences and the fact that most people in Ireland need a car for work and getting around. It’s deterrent enough to people I’ve spoken to anyway

    19. TwinIronBlood on

      I’ve been breathalyzed twice in 30 years of owning my own car. If I was to go for a couple of pints after work and drive, unless I had an accident there is a near zero chance I’d be caught. I like to think I’m a good human so I don’t drink drive but been caught isn’t on my mind.

    20. JuggernautSuper5765 on

      The deterrent for me is knocking someone over, or crashing and it being my fault….