New legislation that came into force on Friday has opened the doors to the possibility of changing Malta’s generous drink driving legal limit, up to now the EU’s highest, by way of a legal notice which has also more than doubled the fine for driving under the influence.

Moreover, the change in legislation has also provided for the use of a wider range of breathalyser equipment by the police and has made a driver who refuses to submit to a blood alcohol test automatically guilty of driving under the influence.

The new rules form part of wide ranging legal amendment, the Various Laws (Criminal Matters) Act of 2010, which are being introduced incrementally and which have also included the new landmark legislation combating the sexual abuse of minors.

A legal notice published on Friday introduced a new portion of the legislation approved by Parliament in June, which takes particular aim at drink driving.

The new legislation raises the bar for those refusing to take a breathalyser, blood or urine test. Whereas the previous legislation had termed such refusal a crime, the new legislation, while retaining the criminality of refusing to provide the required sample, also provides for such refusal to be automatically considered as an admission of guilt of driving under the influence.

The fine for driving under the influence has also been more than doubled from the previous €465.87 to €1,200.

Until Friday, and as the previous legislation stood, the type of breathalyser equipment used by the police had been very specific, and equipment in use was expensive and repairs were excessively costly.

Now, the minister responsible for the police has been given the flexibility to choose other types of equipment. It is thought the liberty provided by no longer being constrained to particular types of equipment could see a revival of breathalyser tests, an area reported as being seriously missing on the roads.

The minister responsible will also be able to provide for new procedures to be adopted by the police in carrying out breathalyser, blood and urine tests.

Way paved for changing the legal limit

Moreover, the new rules allow the authorities the possibility, through a legal notice, to change the country’s maximum blood alcohol content, which currently stands as the European Union’s most generous at 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood – a limit Malta shares with the UK, Ireland and Ireland.

Perhaps the country’s generous limit is behind the fact that a recent EU survey showed how a startling 91 per cent of the Maltese population does not know the legal limit beyond which drink driving is punishable by law. The percentage was the highest among EU member states and was followed by Greece (76 per cent) and Romania (74 per cent).

Last December, Agenzija Sedqa had called on the authorities to review existing legislation that establishes the 80mg limit, and recommended that the limit be lowered to 50mg, as it rolled out its anti-drink driving campaign.

A recent report drawn up by the British medical regulator, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Guidelines (NICE), has advised that legal limits for drinking and driving in the UK should be reduced from 80mg to 50mg.

A single alcoholic drink, the report found, triples a driver’s risk of dying in a vehicle crash, and a small beer or glass of wine can increase a driver’s blood-alcohol level by more than half the legal limit, a report commissioned recently by the British government has found.

The study found that even at the one-drink level, the chances of a fatal accident are three times higher than in a driver who has drunk no alcohol at all. That is half the risk of the 80mg drink-drive limit, which increases the chances of a fatal crash by at least six times. In drivers who are just over the limit, at up to 100mg blood alcohol level, the risk is 11 times higher. The exponential increase in the danger for drivers who have drunk a relatively small amount of alcohol is spelt out in the report.

The effects are particularly acute in younger people, who, according to the NICE report, are “less experienced drivers, are immature and have a lower tolerance to alcohol than older people”. Young people aged between 18 and 25 are more likely to die in road accidents than from any other cause.

In fact, when the 50mg limit was introduced in 15 countries in Europe, it resulted in an 11.5 per cent fall in fatal drink-driving accidents involving 18 to 25-year-olds, the group at highest risk.

Europe has the highest per capita alcohol consumption in the world. Harmful and hazardous alcohol consumption is the third largest risk factor for ill health in the EU, responsible for 195,000 deaths each year and accounting for 12 per cent of male and two per cent of female premature mortality. The estimated economic cost to the EU is in the region of €125 billion per year.

Alcohol is measured in units of 10ml of alcohol, which is the amount of alcohol in a half-pint of 3.5 per cent alcohol beer, a single 25ml measure of spirits or a small 125ml glass of light table wine – meaning the limit in Malta, generally speaking, allows for the consumption of four pints, eight pub measures of spirits or eight small glasses of wine for people who intend to drive.

The rate of absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, however, is unpredictable and depends on a number of factors such as a person’s weight, their level of hydration, the type of alcoholic drink consumed and whether food is eaten at the same time.