I REFER to your editorial of December 26 and welcome your support for our enforcement action under the new drink-driving legislation.
You suggested, however, that the current prescribed limits for alcohol concentration in a driver's blood, urine and breath should be lowered and that the police should conduct random breath tests on drivers and mount road blocks for this purpose.
No blood/alcohol limit was prescribed in the earlier legislation. We adopted the most common standard in European Union countries and in many states in the US by setting the limit at 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood or 36 micrograms in 100 millilitres of breath.
We believe that this provides us with a reasonable starting point. Indeed the Legislative Council endorsed this approach during the passage of the bill in June last year.
When we first presented our proposal for drink-driving legislation to the Legislative Council Transport Panel in October, 1994, members expressed concern about the possible abuse of power by the police in requiring a driver to take the screening breath test. Similar concern was again expressed by some Legislative Council members during the bill's committee stage. It is against this background that we have decided not to introduce random breath tests, but drivers may be required to take a breath test if they are involved in a traffic accident, have committed a moving traffic offence, or if the police have reasonable grounds to suspect that they have been drinking.
The Administration will review the effectiveness of the present legislation in terms of blood/alcohol limit and penalties and whether random breath testing should be introduced.