ONE SIZE FITS ALL BUT IT DOESN`T FOR EXCESS ALCOHOL

I quote from today`s on line  Bucks Herald, “A drink driver who admitted being more than four times over the limit is featured in this week’s round-up from Aylesbury Magistrates Court.  BRIDGET LUMB, 46, of Fairford Leys Way, Aylesbury. On March 27 drove a Peugeot 3008 in Aylesbury after consuming 161 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath (legal limit is 35mgs). Pleaded guilty. Awaiting sentence”.

It dawned on me reading that report that many factors affect the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream of the human body and one of the most fundamental is a person`s weight.  There is no detail of course on the above reported woman`s weight but if a male  Olympic heavyweight wrestler had consumed the same amount of alcohol as that offender it is almost a given that his alcohol level would have been lower than she exhibited.  Now the law in some circumstances has to be precise, sometimes so precise as to be “strict liability”.   Obesity, eg  has changed in meaning over the last few years from a subjective assessment of being overweight to a precise mathematical formula ;

The body mass index is calculated based on the following formula:

Bodyweight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared
           or
BMI = x KG / (y M * y M)

Where:

x=bodyweight in KG
y=height in m

Example for 175 cm height und 70 kg weight:

BMI = 70 / (1.75 * 1.75) = 22.86

The result is in kilograms by meters squared, or KG/M².  

Exceeding the recommended limit opens the door to medical intervention.  Is it beyond the wit of man or lawmakers to devise a more realistic evaluation of how alcohol affects an individual`s ability to drive?  My opinion has long been that the acceptable level of alcohol  should be zero  but in the real world that is unlikely to be adopted as the standard.  Although there are some practical objections foreseeable surely a more objective and fair test than current  limits would be more acceptable than the current one size fits all.