Letter: Drink-drive laws

It seems that nothing, in recent memory, has aroused such universal compliance as the nation's collective repugnance for drink-driving. Such moral high ground, and the rush to be part of it, should be regarded with some suspicion. Two pints does not make a drunk, yet getting caught is likely to brand you a "drunk-driver" for the rest of your life (report, 3 February).

Most people who stop for a drink leave after two pints. I do it, as do many of my friends. We're not drunks, fiends, or killers of children on zebra crossings, and after two pints we obey every cat's-eye. We actually drive more carefully after two pints.

Our reactions are not any slower than they are first thing in the morning, when we are in a hurry to get to work, suffering from a cold, daydreaming, angry, preoccupied, or in any of the states of mind and body we drive in, and about which there can be no legislation. Five hundred "alcohol- related" road deaths amongst tens of thousands of others. A little out of proportion, don't you think?

I'm asking for someone to speak out for the two-pints drinker, who wants to drive home without fear of being an easy target for a lazy police statistic. It's time to stop this hysterical scapegoating of people who are doing nothing wrong.