Letter: Drink drivers

Sir: It was encouraging to see the Appeal Court moving towards stiffer sentences for convicted drink drivers in last week's landmark cases - but sentencing is just one side of the coin. We could also be doing much more to prevent the carnage - estimated at two deaths or injuries every hour - caused by drinking drivers in the first place by supporting the rehabilitation programmes for convicted motorists, established last year by the Department of Transport.

These programmes are greatly underused. An Alcohol Concern survey showed that about 80 per cent of the 21 schemes are running fewer courses than expected, largely because they are too expensive, despite support from the courts. Surely, if the department is serious about cutting drink-drive deaths, there is an argument for scrapping these fees. And surely there can be no reasonable argument against reducing the legal drink limit from the present 80mg of alchohol per 100ml of blood to the 50mg, as in in Holland, Portugal, Greece, Norway and Finland.

Yours faithfully

ERIC APPLEBY

Director

Alcohol Concern

London, WC1