There are a number of calls that could potentially save a life – a call to the 112 emergency number or to Agenzija Appogg’s 179 helpline for example – but the call in question here is one to any of the number of taxi services that will no doubt be working overtime on Tuesday night – New Year’s Eve.
That one call on the traditional night of revelry could potentially save your own life or indeed the lives of family members, friends or those of other road users.
Our annual appeal for the night renowned for its indulgences is to take a taxi, not a life. It’s simple, after spending so much on annual indulgences on New Year’s Eve and indeed over the whole of the festive season, factor in a small extra amount to cover the cost of a taxi on Tuesday.
Car pool, appoint a designated driver or just leave your vehicle where it is parked on New Year’s Eve if one thing leads to another and you find yourself even questioning whether you are fit to drive or not. If you need to ask yourself that question, the answer is an automatic ‘No’.
The message is stressed year after year, and it simply cannot be stressed enough: if you have had one too many, do not drive − take a cab or public transport…walk or crawl. Get yourself home any way you can but if even slightly inebriated, do not get behind the wheel and risk taking a life.
We are lucky to live in a country where distances are never excessively long. In fact, a half-hour suffices, traffic provided, for just about any journey between any two points on the island. Therefore, taxis are not cripplingly costly and public transport has, despite all the bad press, been greatly improved.
The potential ramifications of not doing so are simply not worth a gamble, which, if you win, awards you with the prize of having your car outside your front door the morning after. But, if you lose that gamble, the cost can be very expensive indeed, and a complete write-off of an automobile could be the least of those costs. Just speak to someone who has been the victim of a drunk-driving-induced accident or, even more harrowing, speak to someone who has lost a loved one to drunk-driving. Sadly, there are far too many people around with such tales to tell.
Nor would it be a bad idea for the police to actively breathalyse any driver seen driving out of line over this festive season – replete as it is with parties, staff functions and family gatherings, which as we know are rather conducive to the intake of alcohol in more copious proportions than usual.
The law currently stipulates that the police can employ breathalyser tests only when there is a reasonable suspicion that the person is driving under the influence of alcohol, but that should still leave plenty of scope to pull suspect drivers over to be tested – sober ones included in many cases.
Malta, along with the UK, are the two EU countries with the highest legal blood alcohol limits – at 80mgs of alcohol per decilitre of blood − and calls are continuously being made to lower the threshold. The issue has been on the cards for years now and one sincerely wonders why it has not been done yet, when research shows that blood alcohol content levels over 50mgs drastically decrease a driver’s ability to drive safely. How many more lives will it take before stricter enforcement and a more appropriate limit are introduced to this country?
A report drawn up some years ago by the British medical regulator, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, 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.
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 roughly 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 effects are particularly acute in younger people, who, according to the 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, according to that report. And which age group will be doing the most drinking this year’s New Year’s Eve parties? It is at these younger people that this message is also aimed specifically at – those who are less experienced drivers and less experienced drinkers.
If you have even the slightest suspicion that you have had too much, please keep your car keys in your pocket and find any other means to get yourself, your friends and your loved ones home… safely. Take a cab, not a life, this festive season.