Czech Senator seeks scrapping of zero drink driving limit

What has the Czech Republic in common with Afghanistan, the Maldive Islands, Brazil, Armenia, and Morocco? An official zero tolerance for drink driving is the answer. But police routinely give some leeway to motorists caught after having had just one drink and now a well-respected member of the upper house of parliament, the Senate, has proposed that higher alcohol limits bring the country into line with most of the rest of Europe.

Photo: Barbora Kmentová

It’s probably a surprise to most visitors to the Czech Republic that the country which prides itself on its beer has a zero drink driving limit. The Czech Republic stands alongside neighbour Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, in the European zero alcohol tolerance camp. The overwhelming majority of European countries though have limits of 0.5 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. That roughly translates into a glass of beer.

In practice though, the Czech zero tolerance exists more in theory than in practice. Police regularly turn a blind eye if the breathalyser test indicates up to 0.3 milligrams of alcohol. And this is one of the reasons why the long-standing Civic Democrat Senator Jaroslav Kubera has tabled a motion calling for the mythical zero tolerance to be scrapped and for the Czech Republic to join the club of countries, such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain, with limits of 0.5 milligrams.

Jaroslav Kubera, photo: Filip Jandourek

Senator Kubera explained his stance to Czech Television: “I want to end the Švejk situation where we pretend to the outside world that we have zero tolerance but in reality that is not the case. That means that the police measure 0.3 milligrams then the driver can ask for a blood sample test and the hospitals are of course not often nearby. So it costs a lot of money to take them to hospital and then the result is that after one beer there is nothing there. There is the Švejkian counter argument that if you allow Czechs to have one beer then they will automatically have two. But we will get nowhere if we go down that path.”

The senator adds that most accidents, and especially serious and fatal accidents, are caused when drivers have consumed at least double the limit that he is now proposing. But Kubera’s opponents counter with the argument that his move sends the wrong signals about acceptance of drinking driving. And they warn that it is easier to relax the limits than tighten them again afterwards if the experiment fails. Czech media suggest that support for Kubera’s move is lukewarm even within his own centre-right political party.

Photo: Barbora Kmentová

Across Europe, the recent tendency appears to be for states to tighten their drink driving rules rather than relax them. Scotland for instance brought down its limit to fall into line with most other European countries from the relatively high levels still in force in England and Wales. But police there are now calling for the same reduction.

Meanwhile, lawmakers at the European Parliament in Brussels are calling for European officials to start drawing up a standard drink driving limit across the whole of the EU 28, including the Czech Republic. If successful, that might spell the end of Czech zero tolerance regardless of Senator Kubera’s separate proposal.