To ask if you would report a friend…

[Catsfredwilma]

….who regularly drives whilst under the influence of drink and drugs.
Not asking for all the reasons why reporting is the right thing to do. (Crime stoppers, anonymously).
Asking genuinely, would you honestly actually do it??
YABU….no, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get my friend in trouble.
YANBU….yes, absolutely, I would report.

Yes.
I have also bought a breathaliser as a gift for a friend who drinks too much.
Ignorance should never be an excuse for drink driving.

I hope the self testing reduces the drink driving.
Does anyone think that it would help?

They can flag the reg number - there are so many cameras around that if flagged , they do get notification it’s on the move .
Make local police aware to look out also ? And as another PP mentioned , if a fatal accident occurred and is kept quiet and done nothing - the guilt would be horrendous

There’s somethings I wouldn’t report but that I would

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!

Agreed

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

I would and I have.

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

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)

Facts are not glee.

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

Yes I would and have.

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

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.

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.

Yes absolutely I would

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

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

I would- honestly.

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.

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.

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/

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

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).

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.