It was the perfect storm of teenage recklessness, and five died as a result. A few weeks ago, Stephen Johnstone got behind the wheel of his Falcon XR6 to leave a party, after what appears to be a confrontation of some sort. He must have been exceptionally and obviously drunk to everyone around him, given his blood alcohol level was, according to toxicology reports, 0.19. There were five friends in the car – indicating that at least one didn’t have a seat belt on. He then screamed down Plenty Road -a major road in Melbourne’s outer north-east, gunbarrel straight with an 80km/h limit – at 140 km/h. Almost inevitably, he lost control and wrapped the car around one of the trees that line the road, killing all but one of the car’s occupants.
In the wake of the deaths, there’s been considerable discussion of what can be done to protect teenage drivers from themselves. The shock-jock standby – crushing hoons’ cars – has made a return to debate, though with limited enthusiasm from the police. The Age has given some attention to the range of vehicles that P-plate drivers are allowed to drive, perhaps not realizing that the Falcon XR6 that Johnstone was driving is actually no faster – and has consiiderably better steering, suspension, and brakes – than a base-model Falcon. And a researcher from Monash University, John Reid, has been publicizing the idea that teenage drivers should undergo screening for “immature brains” using either screen-based tests or brain scans, with those identified as having such undeveloped brains prevented or restricted from driving until their brains mature somewhere in their twenties.
As he puts it in this Fairfax op-ed:
The answer to the problem of too many crashes involving young drivers is not to raise the age at which they can obtain a licence nor is it to impose conditions, such as limiting the number of similar-aged passengers or restricting the times of day when they can drive.
Not all young people are immature so it would be unfair to penalise the majority for the potential sins of the minority. Much better to identify young licence applicants who are likely to be at risk and impose restrictions on them.
I find this problematic on a number of levels. As a practical matter, it’s not at all clear that the neuroscience behind the “teenagers have immature brains, therefore take risks” hypothesis is solid enough to take action on. This Time magazine article points to a study that suggests that the brains of “risk-taking” teenagers actually had more mature frontal lobes than their more conservative peers.
But more importantly, this proposal would restrict people not on the basis of what they have done, but what their biology indicates they might do. It completely removes any agency from the individual concerned – Reid doesn’t mention any kind of scheme that would allow young adults identified as having “risk-prone brains” to demonstrate their responsibility. And it completely ignores social and environmental context – which appear to be far more important in determining risk-taking behavior, as the paper I linked to noted about the variance in their measure of “risk-taking”, the ARQ:
Although we found a significant relationship of the ARQ to chronological age, only 32% of the variance of the ARQ was actually accounted for by age and sex. The white matter correlations were even less, accounting for a maximum of 25% of the variance in the ARQ subscales, which is typical for a brain imaging study. The degree of subject heterogeneity, therefore, indicates that other unknown factors contribute to a particular individual’s propensity to engage in dangerous behaviors. It also underscores the danger in overgeneralizing about the relationship of the adolescent brain to such behaviors.
Not exactly compelling justification for abandoning the idea of judging people on what they actually do, rather than their biology.
Years ago Victoria Police used to fail cocky 18 year old males who went for their drivers licenses on their 18th birthday. Nervous girls who knew they were not good drivers were not as likely to fail their test.
Just with respect to the study you cite (Berns et al, in PLoS One), we’ve journal clubbed it and it has a number of problems. Furthermore, the relationship between white matter development and grey matter development is not especially strong (see Tamnes et al, Cerebral Cortex 20:534), so one might be quite immature on one metric but mature on another.
On your substantive point, about judging people on what they actually do, rather than their biology… I understand what you are getting at, but of course the age cut-off for obtaining a driving licence is already judging people on their biology rather than their capabilities (notwithstanding the fact that it has a blanket application). The point surely is to identify the right cut-off – should it be chronological age, or some yet-to-be-determined ‘brain age’? I’ve got no problem with the latter in principle, but I’m 100% sure we’ve got no way of doing it at the moment.
Declaration of Interest: I have a 16 year old whose entreaties to be able to get a licence hubby and I are resisting. No way is he getting behind the wheel until I am certain he is not a danger to himself and others. That could take a while. If he is still at home at 21, he stilll won’t be driving, at least on current evidence.
This is one of the more recurrent moral panic style issues. I can recall a debate very much like this one about “bullets on wheels” in the late 1970s and 1980s. SLR 5000s, XU1s, 351 Falcons etc …
Personally though, I am very much inclined to accept the broader argumentation on the pertinence of the cognitive deficits young people have to driving, and for that matter, consuming alcohol. Of course, agreeing in principle doesn’t at all recommened any particular policy. Having a rationale for doing something, and a feasible policy response aren’t at all the same thing.
In a world rather closer to the ideal than this one, nobody under 21 years of age would consume more alcohol than is part of standard prescription and over the counter medications. They wouldn’t drive motor vehicles either, except perhaps in exceptional circumstances and after having shown themselves not only to be highly competent, but highly responsible. We would have fabulous public transport which would render motor vehicles mostly redundant, except for the infirm, people delivering goods and services and so forth. Road trauma would be a headline story. Road toll goes to 8 this year would leave a pall over everyone coming into Christmas. Brain and spinal units would be scaled back radically for lack of custom. There would be virtually no on street parking. Bikes would be commonplace. One can dream.
Back on topic though, the horse has bolted and IO can’t see how psychological testing is going to turn up actionable data for qualifying people to drive. Measuring mental states with the precvision required, and using that to model future social behaviour is going to be close to impossible. Throw in alchol, and the whole thing is mad.
If there is a route to harm minimisation, it is surely through diversionary programs. We have to both raise the cost of operating motor vehicles and consuming alcohol and then devise programs funded by this revenue that compete with doing those things — good public transport, alternative entertainment venues and so forth. I see nothing better.
The first tragedy is that youth believes romance like this. The other is that old age doesn’t. I bet these days The Boss potters around in a station wagon replete with baby vomit stains.
I’m not sure there’s anything you can do to stop behaviour like this, except to provide an alternative outlet for it – one that clicks with the audience. I think these guys were beyond the blue-light disco phase.
As it happens I also have a “high-powered” XR6, and while 190kW sounds a lot to people who own 4-cylinder compacts, 190kW isn’t anything special in a big sedan – especially if it has a sludge-box. Compared to the base-model XT, I don’t remember it having better brakes – it’s mainly a trim thing until you start adding options. In any case the XT has the exact same engine.
I seem to recall reading about one study which showed that people of average or slightly below average intelligence were safer drivers than people of above-average intelligence. The apparent reason for this was that the brainy types found the task of driving such a breeze that they became complacent and tended to multi-task at the expense of the due diligence and focused attention which safe driving requires, whereas people of humbler mental talents always had to devote all their neurons to the task.
I’ll see your Springsteen and raise you Hunter S., CraigMc.
You can’t take away the romance and glory of automobility. Driving’s viscerally pleasurable, and everyone who’s tried it knows it.
We can certainly do something about a community of people who’re willing to get in a car with someone who’s obviously angry and drunk behind the wheel, though. Or willing to wave goodbye when that person’s leaving the party with a beltfull of beer. Holy hell.
The kid probably couldn’t have gotten to work (he was an apprentice tiler) without a car, it was his right to own a car and be a licensed driver. The only way this sort of tragedy can be stopped is when every one of the car passengers says “no way Stephen, you’re not getting into that car and nor am I”.
How to get to that cultural point with young males is currently beyond me, but I’ll let you know how I go with my two very young sons in two decades time…
It should be seen as a privilege, not a right.
Everyone has the right to life. Only some should have the privilege to drive.
I’ll have to disagree: I do have a problem with it in principle.
If you’ll pardon the slippery slope argument, it’s not that far from this position to pre-emptive detention for people who are assessed by some medical procedure as being of high risk of committing a crime.
Being somebody that has published a few reasonably high impact papers in the area of cognitive neuroscience, I think I can reasonably say that almost all of the stuff ever published using fMRI and trying to link it to complex behavior (including my own work) is extremely speculative at best. What’s worse is that there are more ridiculous claims being made in that area of research than almost any other I can think of — which oddly enough the public loves to hear. It’s 21st century phrenology revisited unfortunately, with more marketing.
I agree, Robert. Failing someone in a drivers’ test because they couldn’t complete the test accurately is preventing someone from having a license because of what they have actually done. We have to have some kind of test which gives rise to the entitlement to drive. But you can’t punish someone for something they haven’t done.
And I also agree that it might create a slippery slope – what about people who are judged likely to commit crimes? Will they also be gaoled?
I don’t accept the comparison at all. In my view, we prevent people from obtaining a driving licence until they are 18 because we consider them to lack the necessary maturity before that age. However, that is a very crude way of assessing someone’s maturity. If we had a better way of doing so, why wouldn’t we use it? It says nothing about their risk of committing a driving offence any more than denying a 17 year old a licence implies that they are at high risk of committing a similar crime.
Following this assessment of maturity (you say chronological age, I say brain age), one would still need to pass a licence test – again, this test merely determines that you meet a certain level of competence. In what way is this ‘test’ different to the ‘medical procedure’ you are worried about? Is it the concept of a brain scan that concerns you? What if it was some sort of risk-taking measure (there are quite a few computerised versions available), or a test of behavioural control? These things all change as we move through adolescence into adulthood, so we could easily determine a point at which one was accepted as ‘mature’.
If you are worried about the potential for mis-classifying someone, then I completely agree with you – and indeed, there is no obvious measure of brain maturity that could be applied at the individual level as yet. I can also see that there is a danger that you might never be assessed as mature by this system, whereas you know that if you can get to 18 you are ‘mature’. These are all things that might affect implementation of this idea. But you seem to be implying that brain science can never contribute to this discussion.
It is the alcohol. It is obvious. Up the drinking age to 21 years and make it a serious offence to provide alcohol to any under the age of 21 years. Drive with any alcohol, at any age, and that equates to mandatory suspension of licence for everyone. Take it from me after many years working in a major ED you don’t want your kids or relatives killed, maimed or written off by a drunk driver. No-one who has had that experience would disagree with me. Alcohol and driving do not mix. Not even a little bit.
Scientific American Mind not long ago reported that risk-taking may in fact be a sign of a mature brain. The question is how do you change a culture that says getting drunk is a hoot and driving cars fast is a hoot?
I was lucky to survive an accident in my teens, missed a stobie pole by 4 feet and ended up in the middle of a paddock after launching myself off the road – in an HG 186, top speed 90 kmh, 110 on the downhill run.
Did anyone see the lurid green graphic on the news.com online papers advertising a competition featuring “an XR6 ute” as a major prize? sponsored by the TAC!
Numpties!
Fran, if a 19 year old can’t get a licence, assuming they’ve passed all reasonable tests of competency, then for most of them they are condemned to being jobless.
Cacambo @13, I reckon that would be the most logical action – drinking age 21. Immature brains (however poorly measured) AND high alcohol concentrations (further reducing its functioning) AND driving faster than normal reflexes or their addled brains can handle (because drunks are bolshy and bulletproof)…
The simplest hypothetical lever there would be to raise the drinking age, and thus remove a key variable in the accidents. However, as Fran @3 says, the horse has bolted. We probably can’t change drinking age across the board without huge amounts of rage from Aussie youf. And sly grogging.
Perhaps the most implementable strategy is to have a zero tolerance 0.00 on drink-driving until the age of 21? That is, people under 21 can drink, but they cannot drive with ANY alcohol content in their bloodstream. The law would have to make sure the punishments for drink-driving (over 0.00) under 21 are severe enough to enforce the use of taxis, buses or no-drink skippers?
Robert Merkel@9 said:
There is a huge ripple in that slippery slope Robert.
Firstly, people deemed criminally insane are detained, not in punishment but in pursuit of risk management considerations. Typically, we have some serious evidence of this, but in principle, it is no different.
Secondly, the right to be free to act as one pleases subject to law is presumptive. Unless you have committed a crime, or are clearly about to (e.g criminal trespass), you may not be restrained. Driving a car is a privilege given out to those who are qualified by competence, defined broadly, and their ostensible willingness to observe the traffic laws.
Wilful@16 said:
Hardly. I know lots of people who have never driven who hold down good jobs. The tests of competence are different, as they should be. Personally, I think the driving tests should be sterner — much sterner and that people (all of us) should have to submit for retesting on a 3-year basis.
It is our culture. Frightening, because limiting performance vehicles for new drivers will only have some effect (unless we limit the speed of all cars entering Australia to 110 kph), raising the drinking age won’t help all that much since there have been underage drinkers ever since there was a drinking age, and speed will always be a factor as long as it’s glorified without a legitimate outlet. As for crushing cars, I can’t think of a bigger incentive for someone to tear recklessly down the road the the thought of their pride and joy/major material possession being demolished.
I remember Operation Drag on the Gold Coast. It reduced a lot of speed-related problems for a long time.
“Operation D.R.A.G. stood for Drag Right And Gain- a longer life
It was started by a few intelligent Q.L.D. Police Officers that were members of the Blue Light Association trying to make a difference to the countries trouble youth. This was started back in 1993. They had the help of the Q.L.D. Monaro and Torana Clubs and then started holding $10 a head race meets at the now old “Sufers Paradise Raceway”. It was a huge success.” This is a great example of changing the culture.
“If we had a better way of doing so, why wouldn’t we use it?”
.
We do already, but we don’t use it because it’s discriminatory. For example, if you want to minimize accidents, then I doubt you would do much damage by reducing the age for females to 15 (there must be data on that from around the world incidentally). Alternatively, you could probably reduce it a fair bit if you increased males to 21. You could then do even better by linking the male and female ages to simple intelligence tests and testosterone levels, but we are not going to do that either.
A fairer solution if you really wanted it would be to have really tough restrictions on cars — say, not letting P-platers drive anything more than 1.6 litre cars without engine modifications (with exceptions, say, for jobs — I note most 18 year old female P-platers seem to already drive cars like that, or at least ones where you would look like a fool if you drove them aggresively).
The reckless behaviour of these young men is an amplification of behaviour that is considered normal. We drink too much, our cars are too powerful and we drive too aggressively with little or no regard for the danger we pose to others.
Teenagers just look at what is considered borderline normal and do it a bit more.
And age is not discriminatory how?
That’s the point – making a discrimination about someone’s capacity to drive even before you’ve tested them.
A generation ago driving drunk was normal. You were a mate if you helped your bro to his car in the 1970′s. Then watched as he dropped the keys five times, fell down etc. You’d help to put the key in the door for him and possibly into the ignition…. and then walk back into the pub having been a good mate.
Seriously, “do you need help to get to your car” was the big question at closing time across the nation.
Cars routinely coming over the hill on the wrong side of the road on Sat nite, people falling dead drunk out of their cars when they arrived home, somehow having managed to avoid crashing into like, everything…routine. Life
on marsin oz.Banning all under 21′s or whatever the age cohort is, from having any alcohol in their bloodstream whilst driving is the easiest and fairest way if the stats. just stubbornly refuse to move down any other way – ie. you can get pissed and walk home or take the bus/taxi etc.
It won’t stop every young person drink driving – it doesn’t stop people over 21 driving over the legal limit now – but if you look at road stats. before blood alcohol limits were introduced and compare the amounts of cars on the road – we have come a long, long way.
People’s attitudes and behaviour around drink-driving has been changed entirely.
Speed and young drivers…another keetle of.
make that a generation or two ……
how is denying a license on the basis of an MRI-based judgement of what they might do different to denying a license on the basis of an age-based judgement of what they might do?
Both are based on the idea that as you get older your brain matures, but the MRI judgement claims to identify this point independent of a fixed age discriminator. It claims simply to be more accurate.
Objecting to the MRI because it’s crap, I’m on board with that. But it is not in principle any different to refusing someone a license at 15 because your discriminator (the year of their birth) says they aren’t ready.
Jo @23, totally agree.
It seems a reasonable compromise; under 21 can drink, under 21 can drive, but they may not do BOTH at the same time. That way, they can still have a good night out with the mates, and they can still have a car for work.
Perhaps it is another form of “self-protective legislation”, like enforcing the wearing of seat belts? The law is protecting people from their own fallibility?
My cousin told me a story about Adelaide in the days before breath tests. Apparently they’d get you to put a key in a keyhole and walk along a painted line to judge your co-ordination.
One day some friend of a friend of a friend of her Dad, as drunk as a lord, was parking his car just near the police station, as you do. he ran into the back of the last in a line of parked police cars and there was a massive thunka-thunka-thunka as they all crashed into one another.
The cops ran out, dragged him into the station and subjected him to the usual tests. According to my cousin he then failed to even begin the line test, because he fell down, and he didn’t put the key anywhere near the lock (“put it in his ear”).
According to this story, his lawyer then got him off on the basis that he hadn’t done the tests.
That story is far, far too good to be true, I know.
A few days ago I saw a news article about a spot-the-booze-bus app for iPhone. Apparently there’s somewhere you can go to log false positives and thwart the little dears in their cunning plan. Anyone have a link for that?!
Elise @ 26 – a zero alcohol limit was already the case of the driver who died wasn’t it? Perhaps the problem is that by the time they get that drunk they lose the judgement to really understand (or care) about the consequences of driving. And their friends are also similarly drunk and make a very poor decision about being a passenger in the car of a drunk driver.
I think the binge drinking culture and peer pressure around it is a major cause, but have no idea how you can change it especially in the short term. Just banning drinking under 21 won’t work as people will just drink anyway. Incidentally I don’t think that strong prison sentences for drunk driving causing death work as a deterrent either. People just don’t think its going to happen to them.
Elise
The point being that it is already illegal to drink and drive at 0.19 level, and this person did it anyway. So making a law to stop people doing something for which there is alreay a law which they ignore anyway seems pointless. Its either change the culture through peer presure/education etc, or change it through penalties so harsh people don’t want to do it. Most people obey the laws because they agree with them or because they’re too scared not to. What do you do about those who don’t care about the law or the consequences.
Chris @28, maybe you need much stronger peer pressure?
Eg. charge the passengers with being accessories to a crime, and dock them points as well, because they allowed him to drink-drive? Mount a “cop surge” to lurk outside pubs and breathalise the lot of them in the car parks as they drive out. Under 21 and over 0:00 means handing over the keys forthwith, and points docked all round.
Maybe eventually the binge drinking companions will be running short of points, and will be concerned about losing their own licences. People might claim that they didn’t know their mate had a drink, but if you fine everyone anyway when the driver is over, then people will start paying attention.
As a uni tutor years ago, I used a somewhat similar approach to stop an epidemic of cheating. I didn’t try to decide who was the copier and who the copied (the cheats are often also accomplished and charming liers). I simply said it was a shared effort so shared marks. Made the “innocent” parties as mad as hell with both me and their lazy mate. They didn’t loan their work out afterwards, and the word spread like wildfire.
Perhaps it is not workable for drink-driving?
Dingbat @29: “Most people obey the laws because they agree with them or because they’re too scared not to. What do you do about those who don’t care about the law or the consequences.”
You’ve answered your own question.
There is NO 100% foolproof method of getting ALL people to follow any law.
There is NO 100% safe car, despite all the air-bags, anti-lock brakes, seat-belts, crumple zones, etc, etc.
You try to save as many as possible, within the limits of reasonable costs and reasonable laws. There will always be idiots. No system is totally idiot-proof, but you do what you can to block the gaps.
But what are the consequences Elise. If law A doesn’t work, making law B seems pointless. I’m suggesting that making a new law won’t block the gaps. Perhaps the lad who smashed his car could never be saved, or perhaps laws aren’t the answer, or perhaps seriously kicking people’s arse who drink drive is the answer. Crushing their cars?
Elise @ 30 – I don’t know whether being able to punish people who knowingly get into a car with someone who is drunk would be possible or even work (how do you prove they knew the person was drunk when they’re pretty drunk themselves). Ideally you just want to make getting drunk “uncool”. It leads to so many other problems besides drink driving. But authorities have been trying that for years to no real effect.
One possible technological fix for drink driving might be to rig a kill switch that could only be deactivated once you had performed a breath test and typed in a PIN for yourself as driver and entered some biometric data (your index finger in a reader under the dash, maybe a retinal scan). Perhaps every 30 minutes you’d have to redo the test (to help cut out getting a friend to do it). Alternatively could also have a reader mounted at the steering wheel or attached to your seatbelt and where you weren’t passing the breath test the car would slow down to about 25 kms and eventually (over 200 meters), come to a complete halt.
Robert you only see a problem because you frame the issue as one of restricting people’s rights. People are granted a LICENCE – meaning they satisfy certain criteria that they can do something (in this case drive a motor vehicle) to the required standards of competency. ‘Competency’ has a broad meaning and in principle there is nothing wrong with stipulating certain character or personality requirements as essential competencies. In fact they are already required before you can get a licence to own a firearm or practise in certain professions.
The difficulty is in finding a way to describe and test the required competencies, and I agree with you that this seems too difficult with respect to drivers. However if the practical problems can be overcome and people prone to road rage or irresponsible behaviour can be identified reliably and denied licences, I would be all for it.
elise + Jo at various above: re. drinking age. Some time back Guy Rundle published an article analysing Rudd’s neo-Blairism in which he made a point with which I am in total agreement: neo-Blairism (Giddensite third wayism to neologyse and mangle simultaeiously) has no capacity to genuinely challenge ruling structures of power, money and authority. To provide the semblance of having a policy in the UK the issues became public safety and street violence. In the wider sense Rundle suggested that micro-management of the self (selves) of neoliberal democracy has effectively become pretty much what social technocrat (previously social democrat) parties of the UK and Australia now do. This explains Conroy’s quite nutty attempts to address the souls of the parishioners…sorry, citizens of Australia with the net filter. Bringing neoliberal citizens into being in a particular model fit for neoliberal times.
So, let’s see them take on a substantive issue: drinking. Raise the drinking age to 21; zero tolerance for any drink driving, serious suspensions of licence for breech. This would bring them into conflict with yoof and the alcohol industry, the latter being an awesome opponent. But let us see the ALP get a bit effing real for a change and use power for what it is genuienly good for. Other commenters have noted seat belts (accepted now, opposed intitially), drink/drive laws (accepted now and regarded as the end of civilisation at the time). It is good social policy and can be done. Remember Howard’s disarming of the populace? That was tough but probably the best thing he did in office.
Youth binge drinking is shocking and tolerated. My daughter only today informed me that she has been told that all of the USyd private colleges are provided with free booze by RedBull (some sort of mixed alcopop thingie) during orientation week. This is an outrage given the history of alcohol fuelled assaults, sexual assaults and misconduct associated with those colleges. And the heads of college must surely have agreed to this?
Time to get real, Labor.
We can already do that quite effectively – with modern technology, we can even do it in the womb? But would you be happy for the law to ban men from driving until 30? After all, it’s a much, much better predictor of driving risk than any brain scan…
Authorities do something like this for DD convictions, but that’s because the police can specifically target these people for verification. As soon as you put these devices everywhere they’ll be circumvented. The police wouldn’t be able to check even .1% of them. That’s quite aside from the several hundred dollars added to the cost of each car.
Perhaps one thing that could be used to help break the popularity of alcohol and subsequent binge drinking is to put it under the same advertising and sponsorship restrictions as cigarettes. Part of making the culture of binge drinking and the need to drink alcohol to fit in socially unacceptable.
and that’s sage, billie.
That’s sloppy, Robert. A combination of under 30 and a (even if not yet nearly feasible) brain scan is always going to be more accurate than under 30 alone. You know it ain’t one or the other.
We already test people to see if they should drive. Nothing wrong in principle in ramping up the test. Whoever, up thread, said there was a right to drive is barking.
I’ll see your Springsteen and raise you Woody Guthrie/ Play School
“Take you driving in my car car
take you driving in my car car
take you driving in my car car
take you driving in my car
Windscreen wipers go swish swish
Windscreen wipers go swish swish
Windscreen wipers go swish swish
Take you driving in my car
Engine it goes brummm brummm
Engine it goes brummm brummm
Engine it goes brummm brummm
Take you driving in my car.”
I mean really what chance have our littlies got?
It’s probably worth noting that there are many people, mostly but not exclusively blokes, in my own demographic (50+) who get done for drink-driving and other risky behaviour.
It’s not limited to the yoof.
We should all be put into some kind of cryogenic stasis until we are post-teen…[and possibly put back into one during the 'mid-life crisis' years].
guys – you need some Bowie:
“Always Crashing In The Same Car”
Every chance,
every chance that I take
I take it on the road
Those kilometres and the red lights
I was always looking left and right
Oh, but I’m always crashing
in the same car
Jasmine, I saw you peeping
As I pushed my foot down to the floor
I was going round and round the hotel garage
Must have been touching close to 94
Oh, but I’m always crashing
in the same car
David @43, most people in Norway are very, very wary about drink-driving. Both the 50+ cohort, and youf. The penalties are severe.
Contrary to the assertions of Dingbat @32, severe penalties do influence behaviour.
The parallel of this, is that restaurants routinely offer a WIDE range of non-alcoholic drinks, not just a couple of sweet soft drinks (which don’t go well with a good meal).
As do hosts at parties in Norway – lots of low-alcohol options, and noone tries to forceably top you up. A certain percentage of both Poms and Aussies seem to think this is an acceptable practice. “I’m drinking to excess, so you will be too…” Then they get ratty with you if you refuse and put your hand over the glass to stop the forceable top-up. We definately have a binge-drinking culture here, with strong peer pressure to conform.
At social functions in Norway, the waiters routinely ask “with or without” as they go round with two bottles of red wine, then two bottles of white wine. One is normal strength and the other is ultra-low alcohol content. Everyone understands that you will be on the vacuum distilled grog (alcohol-removed) or a soda-based drink if you are driving.
We could easily do that here too, if we really wanted to reduce fatalities from drink-driving.
“A certain percentage of both Poms and Aussies seem to think this is an acceptable practice. “I’m drinking to excess, so you will be too…” Then they get ratty with you if you refuse and put your hand over the glass to stop the forceable top-up. We definately have a binge-drinking culture here, with strong peer pressure to conform.”
Tis indeed true Elise, as i found when i tried to give up for a while.