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Clip description
Dr Graham Starmer, Associate Professor of Pharmacology at Sydney University, explains to presenter Peter Wherrett that driving skills are affected even with only a small amount of alcohol in the bloodstream. Once the amount is up to 0.03 blood alcohol concentration, the changes in driving skills are detectable. Above 0.05, driving skills are markedly affected.
Curator’s notes
When this program went to air, drink driving was a significant problem. The program addresses this simply but forcibly. It is worth noting that the camera, somewhat unusually, does not cut away to the presenter. Instead, it stays on Dr Starmer, who is calm but clearly strongly engaged in the issue, and this makes for very effective television.
To think that there were no checks on the amount of alcohol in the bloodstream when driving until only 30 years ago is shocking today. When the first rules were introduced in Australia, the amount of alcohol in the bloodstream was set at 0.08 in some States. This very quickly settled at 0.05 and, in later years, at zero for provisional licensed drivers.
