Tipsy bus drivers to be «alcolocked»

Photo: Erik Prozes

Police thinks alcohol activated vehicle immobilisers work well to keep drunk drivers off any vehicle.

Quietly, Road Administration has started to demand alcohol locks on passenger buses. As assessed by the police, the devices would be helpful to also keep problematic people from driving the ordinary car.

As early as last fall, a governmental traffic committee arrived at the conclusion: to prevent intoxicated bus drivers from getting behind the wheel, mandatory alcolocks could be considered for passenger buses. At the same time, they admitted the method would be quite costly.

Now, Road Administration is aiming at having all buses in Estonia carrying people for fee to have the devises installed by 2013. With that in mind, they have gradually started to enhance their use, to avoid overwhelming the transport companies.

«First in line, use of alcohol locks could be made mandatory on regular state services,» said Mari-Jaana Adams, a PR-head of the agency.

Use of alcolocks on vehicles is not regulated by law. «Thus, it might be set as one of the regular services public procurement conditions that the buses proposed be equipped with alcolocks. Or else, it could be added as a criterion which provides an advantage,» said Ms Adams.

For starters, the advantage-giving alcolock criterion was written into procurement documents for the county carriers whose contract is about to expire. Now, alcolock-equipped buses will appear, starting January 1^st 2015, on the lines of Põlva and Tartu Counties, and a part of Valga County.

«If we add the requirement in all the procurement documents to come, and have alcohol lock equipped buses win due to fulfilling the criterion, by 2022 we will have arrived at a situation where all regular state services in counties have the devices,» said Ms Adams.

Finns show way

In Finland, for instance, a pilot project was started in 2008 already. In it, police offered tipsy drivers an alternative: instead of other forms of punishment, have the lock installed.

«About 70 percent of Finnish drivers who used alcolocks admitted it had an effect on their behaviour and stopped them from tipsy driving. Since 2008, alcolocks have prevented 12,000 cases of drunk driving in Finland, while violations of alcohol limit was detected in over 40,000 cases,» said Police and Border Guard Board senior officer, Police Major Veiko Kommusaar. «On and off, use of the measure has also been discussed in Estonia.»

Jüri Saar, a logistician at the bus company Atko, however, deems the devices useless – the effect being shot term.

«I would understand an unnoticeable alcolock which would automatically register the driver being intoxicated, but then there may be no drunkard in the car... nor, I’d think, the old lady taking her heart drops. But with an alcometer where one needs to blow into to get the engine running, one may ask his friend to blow and off we go. This is childish,» thinks the man, adding it should be the aim to just rule out drunk driving altogether.

«To make the people play the lottery of «will it start or not» is short-sighted and irresponsible,» said Mr Saar. «Because drunk drivers, it is not right to impose alcolock on all people; that would be like make everyone to war armour because there are some knife wielders around. It is the drunkard that needs to suffer and bear responsibility, not the decent citizen.»

As for the police, they have more measures up their sleeve to cut drunk driving, key-words being «accident prevention» and «strong supervision».

«This year, we have checked over 370,000 drivers and caught 4,000 drunk drivers. In view of previous years, the trend is downward somewhat, but it is early to draw long-term conclusions,» admitted Pol. Maj. Kommusaar.

«Anyone of us can avoid the worst and it does not take superhuman effort. All it takes is correcting one’s own behaviour – one finds a sober driver, in case of need, and one will stop a tipsy friend or relative from taking the wheel,» he added.

Extra methods

Recently, police has started a behaviour-program in Southern Estonia with initial people involved – volunteering for it after being caught drunk driving. 

«If a traffic offender passes the program, he retains the licence to drive. As evidenced by the experience of other countries, such an approach – dealing with sources of the problem – has been a success. We have also started various dialogues to have this adopted as a structured and systematic approach in Estonia, to cut drunk driving,» said Pol. Maj. Kommusaar.

Of all traffic accidents in Estonia, about 12 percent are caused by drunk drivers. This year, drunk drivers have caused 11 casualties and 117 people injured.

During the first six months of 2014, the police confiscated vehicles of 91 drunk drivers – a 60 percent increase year-on-year.

Alcolock

•    An electronic device keeping a vehicle from starting if the breath exhaled by driver exceeds alcohol content limit allowed. Also, the driver is required to test-blow during the ride.

•    The devices are used with transportation requiring professional drivers (in buses, commercial carriage etc) and with persons punished for drunk driving to avoid repeat of the offence or as part of the punishment. Prevention of repeat is part of a broader preventive program also including medical and psychological help.