When did drink driving become socially unacceptable?

[Globetrote]

Like the title says - when in the UK did it become unacceptable from a moral and social viewpoint? I see online that the first law with alcohol legal limits was introduced in 1967, but the first public campaign was earlier in 1964 and aimed at housewives to pressurise their husbands not to drink drive.

The reason I ask is this - I was born in another country with similar timeframes for drink driving laws/campaign, but my father regularly drove drunk. I remember it clearly in the 1980s when I was a child being petrified, car often swerving across lanes and he nearly passed out at the wheel, but he never got caught until about 20 years ago when he lost his license for 6 months (again, not in the UK/EU). He thought the it was hilarious to have to get the bus for 6 months, and had no shame.

I was talking to a friend and she said ‘oh everyone was drunk driving in the 80’s, you shouldn’t be bothered about it as it wasn’t just you.’

I knew what he was doing was wrong, I remember the public campaigns in my country, and I hear that they had similar here in England. Did people just not give a shit back then? When did attitudes start to change?

My father and I are NC now for many reasons, but it makes me angry how he played roulette with my life and that of others on the road and has no conscience about it - and then my friend just discounted my feelings about it like it was all nonsense and no big deal.

(parents were divorced and DM never knew until years later).

I passed in the mid 80s, IIRC there was a general acceptance amongst my peers that a pint or so was fine but no more. However in my first longterm job in the early 90s when I was mid 20s there was a hardcore of men around 10 years older than me that regularly drank and drove on Friday lunchtime, work nights out etc, it was quite shocking. They’d be mid 60s now, I still know some of them but think they are more sensible now, they arrange lifts after nights out or stay over.

I think mid 90s when driving same night. Look a bit longer around mid 2000s for morning after to get through. Even then there was a lot of miscalculations,.
Probably surprisingly recent that people waited 24hr

I'd say in the late 80s/early 90s. My username is a giveaway for my age. It was certainly frowned upon amongst my friends after we learnt to drive.
I worked in a pub 1995/96 and one night a week, 3 blokes in their 40s/50s came in for their weekly catch up. I assumed they all walked home as they were all nearby and they'd usually have 3 or 4 pints. One got done for drink driving one week. He was furious and didn't see an issue driving after that amount!
I think there was a definite change in attitude between generations. I do wonder about all the drug drivers tho. So many people smoke a lot of weed!

never said all of the people. stop clutching at straws

No what you said was that you imagine it was widely acceptable in the North of England ,
I'm not the one making sweeping ,ignorant, generalisations.

I don’t think one person’s observations count for much here because you are presumably basing your opinion on people you personally know- unless you have access to police and court records that the rest of us don’t which prove that drink driving is a bigger problem in the north than in the south?

I mean if you’re right, there will be evidence in the shape of data, news reports and legal records, no?

Definitely a generational thing rather than an exact year. I remember going on a driving holiday about 12 years ago, and all the people my age (now mid 30s, so early 20s then) wouldn't dream of drink driving and most ordered a soft drink, whereas those of one generation older were knocking back pints. My parents will happily drink drive as long as it's country lanes, even today, as will all their mates down the pub.

My FIL still does it, not because he's of "that generation" but because he's a twat.

70s it was quite normal to drive drunk home from pub. Fewer cars on road then .

80s starting to be seen as daft but people still did. 90s started to be seen as a no but not till late 90s where I live in countryside was it really a no.

Though people still do.

I know two people with relatives who’ve killed people driving home drunk on country lanes.

the welsh and Scottish are also very anti drink driving

I was in a Welsh pub with my husband until 1:30 am last weekend. We left when everybody else did. We were the only ones that walked home, everybody else drove.

See I reckon I know quite a lot of people who would (and probably do) drive the morning after a night of drinking. I think a LOT of people still haven’t got that part of the message, or think that because they no longer feel drunk in the morning that they are fine to drive.

My Dad did often, into the 2000s, but he was an arsehole in lots of ways.
I have a friend who still would. We regularly took his keys off him. I no longer socialise with him.

I find also that the reduction of limits in Scotland fairly recently have a hightened awareness and so an even bigger jump in awareness.

This is what really worries me - it's no safer on country lanes and there's no logic to their theory!

Exactly! These people neglect the fact that people will also be walking home from the pub.

My father used to arrange a Christmas party for the people who worked for him at a local country pub in the early seventies. They would all drink themselves silly and drive home. The following day there would be much merriment and joking about it and tales about driving into ditches or having minor accidents. The past really is another country!

I remember being driven by my father with a drink in his hand in the 80s. It was becoming socially unacceptable at that time thankfully.

There were active campaigns in my country to shame drunk drivers. Older kids and teens were targeted strongly so they would never become people who drove drunk. I suspect also so that maybe they would say something to their parents. I would not have dared. Like many drunks, my father was abusive.

All my family were drunk drivers in the 70/80s. I remember my uncle driving me home from a family gathering where all those driving drank the whole night long and by the end of the evening he was so drunk he deliberately wove the car in and out of the central white lines singing. His wife just said his name calmly in a steadying tone which at least stopped that game but no further comment was made.
My hateful father was in the car with us (also drunk) and I got shouted at later when I said I had been frightened and that my uncle shouldn’t drink and drive.
In more recent years my ex husband always tried to push the boundaries a bit with drinking and driving so I felt forced to always abstain and do the driving as I couldn’t trust him not to drink.

Surely this is neither a regional nor a generational thing, it is an intelligence thing?
I passed my test in 1985 when I was 17 and it never occurred to me to drink and drive. I don’t remember any friends doing it either
The only person I ever knew to drink and drive was simply a fool.

There were huge campaigns in the 80s to change people’s ideas about drink driving. TV adverts; educational propaganda at the doctors and in libraries, council buildings, etc.; storylines in soap operas; police officers who got caught went from getting a slap on the wrist to getting sacked with no access to their pension. It went from being not a big deal to being something that people frowned on others for doing.

I learnt to drive in the late 80s and it was a big no amoung our friends (though that was probably heightened by two friends of ours early in the 6th form being killed by a drink driver coming back from a night out). But our parents’ generation was much less outraged by it, especially the men.

My parents would never even think to drink drive in 80s onwards

I went on a school trip to the Lakes in 1990. One evening we were driven in a minibus to a pub with a games room, and we played pool while the teachers went to the bar.

The driving teacher had two pints of Guinness before driving the minibus back. In the dark. With a load of giggling teenagers, around some pretty twisty, steep roads.

Nobody really gave it a thought at the time.

I remember it being considered a bit risky in the 80's but I think that had moved on by the 90's.

My mother would never have done it. My dad probably would but thankfully he couldn't drive.

I remember no one wearing seat belts tho!

This is interesting. You mention as a 20 year old. Would you expect it to go quicker or slower with age? Sorry if that is a stupid question!