A few people have expressed unhappiness at my apparent endorsment of drink driving is the latest newsletter I sent out. So for the record, the article was written tounge in cheek, we all know we should never drink and drive. It’s very bad.
There are a couple of other comments I’d like to make. A lot of people think of drink driving as driving when they are totally smashed, but they think it’s ok if they have just had a few beers or a few glasses of wine with dinner and they feel fine. The thing is, that even after a few beers or glasses of wine you are a) driving over the legal limit, so you will be in trouble and b) you may feel fine but your reactions are definitely slowed up. If you are driving, you should have absolutely nothing to drink.
From the perspective of solving this problem of drink driving. I don’t think that punishing people ie. taking away their car is the best way of going about it. Most people don’t want to drink and drive anyway, it’s just that they often have no option. Taxis are so expensive, at R10/km it costs a small fortune to get out and back again. Government should look at improving the public transport system, so that we havea viable alternative (and while I’m thinking about it, the Gautrain is the biggest frekking waste of money I have ever encountered, and this government wastes a lot of money. Whoever gave it the go-ahead must be an idiot).
As for the taxi industry, don’t they understand that there will be a tipping point where if they drop their prices more people will use taxis until it becomes a common thing and taxi drivers will be busy all the time instead of just a few times a day. Driving all day at R5/km will be more lucrative than driving for only 1h at R10/km.