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Speaker 1: Well, I was really struck by this statistic that has

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Speaker 1: been released by the authorities. This after the weekend, the

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Speaker 1: Easter weekend, which is always a very very challenging time

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Speaker 1: out on the roads. In just three days, nearly one

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Speaker 1: thousand drunk drivers were rested on South African roads. According

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Speaker 1: to the Road Traffic Management Corporation. The total from Thursday

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Speaker 1: to Saturday nine hundred and thirty four. That's substantially more

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Speaker 1: compared to the same period last year. So does that

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Speaker 1: mean more drunks or better enforcement? More important, what are

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Speaker 1: the implications of this? What happens to someone who's arrested

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Speaker 1: for driving drunk. Let's get some perspective because this story

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Speaker 1: will move out of the news, I think, particularly as

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Speaker 1: each arrest will to some degree be individualized and will

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Speaker 1: would almost have to track them one by one. But

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Speaker 1: what's the bigger picture for this. Let's welcome to seven

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Speaker 1: oh two Drive, co founder of the Road Ethics or

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Speaker 1: Lee Randall. Welcome and thanks for joining us on seven

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Speaker 1: two Drive. Please give us a call, by the way,

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Speaker 1: on this su if you've ever been arrested for drunk driving,

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Speaker 1: we would like to hear from you as to what

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Speaker 1: happened in the aftermath Dr Randall nine hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: four arrests. What's likely to happen to those people, Well, a.

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Speaker 2: Whole lot could happen to them, And I have to

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Speaker 2: say that it doesn't necessarily mean there is more drunk driving.

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Speaker 2: I think it's clearly a matter of more drunk drivers

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Speaker 2: being picked up. We've had a three shift system of

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Speaker 2: traffic cops, which has been much needed for many years,

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Speaker 2: so the neat has become more efficient and more and

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Speaker 2: more people have been caught up in it, which is

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Speaker 2: right and good because it's an ethical crisis that so

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Speaker 2: many people put themselves behind the steering wheel of vehicles,

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Speaker 2: including heavy vehicles like batters and tracks, in an inebriated

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Speaker 2: state where they are absolutely impaired in terms of the

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Speaker 2: complex activity of driving, and they can kill a lot

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Speaker 2: of people through that activity. And I think the most

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Speaker 2: distressing story for me over this weekend was that of

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Speaker 2: the fourteen year old who was killed while trying to

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Speaker 2: drive home and allegedly drunk father. The lives of that

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Speaker 2: family will never be the same again, and that father

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Speaker 2: will obviously faced consequences, even though he wasn't at the

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Speaker 2: wheel at that time. If that situation is as it

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Speaker 2: has been painted in the media. So what I think

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Speaker 2: a lot of people don't realize is that drunk driving

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Speaker 2: or drink driving as we like to call us, is

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Speaker 2: a criminal defense. It's not an ordinary traffic infringement. It's

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Speaker 2: a serious criminal offense. And when you throw speed into

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Speaker 2: the mix, as my colleague heefez A Larvae in Australasia

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Speaker 2: or says, speed can mean the difference between a fright,

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Speaker 2: a serious injury, or a death. And people who are

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Speaker 2: inebriated cannot judge appropriately and so they become incredibly unsafe drivers,

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Speaker 2: and they will potentially end up with the criminal record,

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Speaker 2: high fines, potential jail time, that should end up with

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Speaker 2: social stigma. Their social standing should be affected, their personal

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Speaker 2: relationships will be affected, and things like employment visas, being

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Speaker 2: able to register in a profession, and being able to

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Speaker 2: hold insurance.

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Speaker 1: So I want to ask you, though, I mean in

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Speaker 1: the real playing out of these things, you know often

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Speaker 1: we see huge arrest statistics, and then if you were

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Speaker 1: to track these things through the processes of the law

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Speaker 1: all the way to court, the numberstin out pretty dramatically.

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Speaker 1: Is there any information or perhaps you feel confident enough

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Speaker 1: to express a view based on what you've studied over

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Speaker 1: a long period of time. Dr Randall and a rest

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Speaker 1: is one thing. Then you know they said, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: do we have the sample and was the sample correctly collected?

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Speaker 1: And so on? How rigorous are the processes and how

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Speaker 1: effective are the outcomes?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think our whole justice system is creaking along. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: since COVID it's been fairly derailed. So both the justice

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Speaker 2: system is working very slowly and in some respects not

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Speaker 2: at all as it should. But you put your finger

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Speaker 2: on the button when you talk about the tests. The

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Speaker 2: toxicology lads in our country have huge backlogs. It's usually weeks,

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Speaker 2: if not months, and even in the past sometimes years

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Speaker 2: before a definitive test result became available and the whole

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Speaker 2: process of trial could move ahead. And sometimes those test

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Speaker 2: results are b for various reasons, and people almost literally

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Speaker 2: get away with murder because of technical details. The other

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Speaker 2: problem is that the media tends to cover the acute

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Speaker 2: aftermath of crashes and the drama and the tragedy of it,

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Speaker 2: but they don't follow up the human interest stories where

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Speaker 2: two years down the line or three years down the line,

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Speaker 2: there is a conviction, there is a sentence or at

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Speaker 2: least a fine, community service, possibly revocation of a license.

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Speaker 2: The media don't tend to cover those long term consequences

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Speaker 2: lately enough, and therefore they're not visible enough to our public,

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Speaker 2: and that faster is an ongoing level of denihalism.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, doesn't that denialism And your point is

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Speaker 1: well taken that you know, ideally we should track these

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Speaker 1: cases over a long timeline, but short of actually staying

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Speaker 1: in touch with the victims' families, it's hard to know

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Speaker 1: when they come to court and until they actually do

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Speaker 1: come to court. But in terms of immediate consequence and

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Speaker 1: perception that you know, what, I've done something really bad,

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Speaker 1: the best way surely for that is for people to

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Speaker 1: experience consequences and if you know, they can say, wow,

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Speaker 1: this thing's never going to come to court anyway. The

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Speaker 1: guys lost the sample. They didn't even do it properly.

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Speaker 1: I mean, of those nine hundred and thirty four people,

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Speaker 1: how many of them are waking up this morning worried.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't have thought a great many from what you're saying.

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Speaker 2: Well, interestingly, Quazilia Natel's Transport department has taken attack of

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Speaker 2: putting on their Facebook pages photographs usually from the back

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Speaker 2: or from the side, but in some camps you can

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Speaker 2: see the full visage of the person who's been arrested.

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Speaker 2: And they're naming and shaming by not necessarily giving out

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Speaker 2: names in public, but definitely giving out occupations. And I'm

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Speaker 2: an occupational therapist by background, and I think everyone in

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Speaker 2: our discipline works with crash survivors at times, and I

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Speaker 2: was fairly horrified to see nurses and occupational therapists, teachers,

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Speaker 2: a public processcutor, and various other people in other occupations

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Speaker 2: named and shamed just in Crazillian hotel. So it's an

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Speaker 2: interesting tactic, and peer pressure and social stigma are evidence based.

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Speaker 2: They do help shift behavior, though there have been studies

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Speaker 2: in other countries that show that peer pressure around things

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Speaker 2: like using cell phones while driving can be more effective

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Speaker 2: than even the legal consequences.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much, doctor Lee Randall, co founder of the

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Speaker 1: Road Ethics Project,