Sober As A Bishop

-- Can you drive?

-- Sure I'm grand. Sober as a bishop. Not Bishop Eamonn Casey's type of sobriety, of course, but I can drive.

-- You're fifty metres from the gardai over there, with their breathalyzer all ready to go. Are you sure you can drive?

-- Only had a couple of pints.

And so, TD Martin Ferris has learned what is common knowledge amongst those who have grown accustomed to stringent drink-driving laws. Walk out of a pub immediately after downing a couple of pints and your breath will indeed set off the breathalyzer machine. It's guaranteed.

Don't have a designated driver available? Have to get yourself home? Don't leave as soon as the empty glass is back on the bar top. Go outside for a smoke. Have a long chat, play some darts, flirt with the ladies. But don't get in your car the minute the glass is drained.

Keep in mind that alcohol impairs reasoning. You think you're fine, that you're walking a straight line and your eyesight is keen, but none of that is true. Only a couple of pints, you think, that's nothing, I'll not be setting off any meters this evening. Until your liver has had a bit of time to metabolize the alcohol, however, your exhalations will be redolent with fumes. Not that you're so drunk that you'll pass out half way home, but it doesn't take much to slow down reaction time. A second or two lost, and instead of braking to avoid that collision, you're smacking the hapless pedestrian who's walking home from the pub because he knew he was too drunk to drive.

Now Martin Ferris has to face the public, to let everyone know that as little as two pints can trigger an arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol. "I suppose the only way you are safe is not to have any drink," he was quoted as saying. That's exactly what the authorities would like everyone to know, to be aware that a little booze goes a long way on the breathalyzer.

They give no quarter to those on high, no free pass for the politically powerful, and that's as it should be with something as deadly as drink-driving. Still, though, to think that the man who once ran guns for the IRA got arrested for having alcohol on his breath. It boggles the mind.