To ask if you would report a friend…

Yeah I take a pretty hard line. To the colleagues saying to stay out of it - are they fine with potential fatal accidents of loved ones, family, children?

The worst cases of child abuse for example have a ‘stay out of it’ element.

If someone wants to do something at home and can only ever affect themselves thats one thing but when they get into a deadly weapon and use it while high/drunk thats where I draw the line.

At 5 pints anyone would still blow well over the limit, even if they seem fairly sober.

Drink drive limits are not the same as impaired driving, because someone can be below the limit but driving whilst unfit through drink or drugs. Separate offences for exactly that reason.

Baffles me that someone like a head teacher would take the risk.

Risk of causing death aside, she’d be in the local papers for it. “Head teacher loses job after drink driving conviction”. Can you actually imagine the humiliation and embarrassment of that?! That puts me off more than anything!

I will have a read of this thank you. I suppose the issue is also how different people process the alcohol. For some 5 pints and they are under the current legal limit and for some 1 pint is too much. Having watched my neighbour drive 50 yards down the road, with a smashed up face because she fell out of a door drunk 6 houses up and still decided to drive home, with her 7 year old at the time in the back. I find the limit infuriating. She still hasn't been caught even though I see her stumble to the car and get in it the following morning. I have a clouded view.

Resources - absolutely not but if they have no reports, there's no intelligence so less likelihood of a stop check to see what's going on.

It only takes one officer a few minutes to follow up if they can, and some are more proactive than others.

A malicious call will be evidenced by a negative breath test, but it's unlikely you'll be able to say it's malicious - could be a false call made with good intent (ie worried but not in possession of the full facts).

Driving laws and regulations in the uk are evidence based. Zero limit sounds like something sections of the public would love but its effectiveness isn’t evidence based

The problem with zero as a limit is it doesn't allow for things like gastric reflux, use of alcohol-containing mouth wash and so on.

More importantly, non alcoholic drinks like fresh orange juice or ripe bananas and fermented foods have small quantities of alcohol which can be detected on a breathalyser but do not impact your driving.

https://www.abbeycarefoundation.com/alcohol/what-foods-contain-alcohol/

Yes, although my friends would never do it but if they did, I wouldn’t want to be friends with them anyway. I have reported 2 people I know.

We lost a relative to a drink driver years ago but I’d think the same way even if that hadn’t happened. Drink/drug driving is such a selfish thing to do.

I would and have, friends and strangers. The real question is when will we except the limit should be zero? And not think people know when they've had too much. For me 1 drink is too many.

I would- honestly.

Thanks that's helpful. Are there really enough resources though to follow up on all reports? What about malicious reports - can you spot those?

Yes, I’d definitely report them, and I’d tell them it was me. Fuck, I’d report my kids for doing this.

I reported my elderly neighbour to DVLA last year. They finally took her licence 5 months later.

She was hitting kerbs, side swiping cars, had an argument with a tree one day, and the final straw was her coming at me on the wrong side of the road as she left the GP surgery. She barely missed me in my rather large and obvious car on the correct side of the road..... Her car was covered in marks and she rode the clutch so hard while revving at top revs that I was convinced she'd fly backwards one day and kill someone.

She'd had visits from police after two minor collisions but no revocation of her licence sadly. She still complains to anyone who'll listen about the whole thing but it turned out through chatting with neighbours that several of us reported her!

Yes absolutely I would

Yes, I would. Save lives, theirs and other peoples.

I have made a report when a mum picked her children up from school clearly drunk. We kept the DC’s and told her why, tried to stop her driving and when this didn’t work, called the police.

I also reported to the DVLA as the person was under treatment for alcohol issues. DVLA removed the driving licence.

An officer can search for the reports of the types mentioned here. If the person provides information that gives a pattern it makes it easier to act and try to be proactive - if time allows you to.

Something like "John leaves the Star Inn on the High St in Bath every Friday between 7-8pm after drinking beers all afternoon. He drives a red Vauxhall Nova registration A123BCD and goes home to 12 New Road where he parks the car on the driveway" is MUCH easier to try to get a jump on than "my neighbour smokes weed all the time then drives his mum's car".

The more specific the information (times, places, cars), the better.

I would but I’d like to think a friend wouldn’t put me in the position to have to report them.

Yes I would and have.

Facts are not glee.

The woman made her terrible choices and reaped her own terrible consequences.

But devils advocate to this oft repeated phrase is that they very likely won’t.

In the example above the headteacher would’ve been arrested and sacked if reported, yet having not been reported, drunk drove home without incident.

(also bit disturbed by the glee with which another poster described someone they know who lost their job family and home from a DD conviction)

Yes I would report straight to the police. They are acting in a way that puts themselves and others in danger.

I would and I have.

Ok, how would you feel if next Friday they wipe out a young family of five.
There is your answer then

Agreed

How could anyone knowingly be friends with such despicable scum? To answer the question, I’d report anyone I knew this to be true about!