One sided research has always intrigued me. Global warming hysteria was the first severe case of this, which has subsequently found some balance from other researchers.
The 2 Drinks Max campaign seems to fit that category at the moment.
Curious as ever, I looked up the annual driver survey run by the Ministry of Transport. One of their research references was from the State of Pennsylvania which had set its drinking limit as 0.8% in 2003.
The most interesting information for me was the chart which showed the number of standard drinks required to reach the 0.8% level. It seems that 'large” people can drink more!
The research says the 2 drink maximum only applies to 45kg small men while lean people at 63kg can have 3 drinks and average people at 81kgs can have 4 drinks, while beefy boys at 109kgs can have 5 standard drinks before reaching the limit.
Did I mention that American standard drinks are 1.4 times larger than the Kiwi version. The average Kiwi Male is 84.7 kg.
Translated, this means the average Kiwi bloke can have 5.6 standard NZ drinks before they reach the limit. Reducing the limit to 0.5 will still mean beefy boys can have well over 2 drinks.
My research paper therefore concludes (serious tongue in cheek) that men should eat more and exercise less to reduce the road toll, ie number of people driving over the 0.8% threshold.
Locally, during Police blitzes 0.004% of drivers drive over the 0.8% limit.
Maybe we can halve that to 0.002% with a keen eating regime.
Roy Edwards, Gate Pa.