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Confessions of a drink driver on a ‘rehab’ course

29 April 2009

Banned for a year, James Hughes-Onslow found himself sent to a group discussion class every Friday in which two ladies schooled him in the art of sobriety on the road

I like to think my contributions led to a more lively discussion. When presented with moral dilemmas, our group sometimes became reckless. What would you do if you were a student and, the day before an exam, your friendly lecturer offers you a copy of the questions? Why, we’d photocopy them and sell them of course. Poor Pamela clutched her forehead in despair. We were given graphs to show how men and women differ in the units of alcohol they can drink, the damage it does to the liver and the brain, and how long the body takes to get rid of it. We were shown horrifying videos presented by Sir Trevor McDonald, Michael Buerk and Alexei Sayle portraying the trauma that can be caused by drink-driving. I’m afraid I scored nil points for saying Sayle should not have been looking sideways and talking to camera while driving a car. But it did raise a laugh.

We were warned that, if you are banned from driving, police can arrest you for being near your car with your car keys in your pocket, and they’ve been known to mark tyres of a banned driver’s car with chalk to see if it has been moved. At the end of the last session, a splendid circular chart was produced showing ‘Stages in the Process of Change’ such as No thought (no problem), Thinking (gains and losses), Decision (control of alcohol intake), Active change (learning to say No), Continue (sticking to decisions), and Relapse (re-offend). Although I put myself in Active change, Petrina very decisively moved me back to Thinking — at the bottom of the class.

We all received certificates saying we had passed. Mine can go on the wall beside the one which says I once completed the Devizes to Westminster canoe race. Afterwards, half of us adjourned to the pub opposite to compare notes, when we saw two faces looking through the window, smiling and waving. It was Petrina and Pamela. We should have asked them in for a drink but we didn’t quite have the nerve.

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David Short

April 30th, 2009 12:01pm Report this comment

Your big mistake was creeping through the lights.

Especially at that time of night. There's nothing better coppers like is to nab someone fairly early into their night shift, which starts at 10pm. With luck, they'll be stuck at the police station till about 4am, leaving only two more hours on the job before going home.

You can be sure they won't nick you then, because they might be stuck at the police station beyond their shift.

We must all do what we can to make life much easier for our comfort-conscious police 'service'.

David Short

April 30th, 2009 1:49pm Report this comment

PS. And the prospect of nicking a respectable older gentleman in a dinner jacket on a scooter late at night must have just been tooooo tempting for today's non-deferential police officers.

Daniel

April 30th, 2009 9:03pm Report this comment

Hi James! Fyi, drink driving is a serious criminal offense. It puts your life at risk and it puts the lives of everyone else using the roads at risk, too. The police were quite right to arrest and charge you: please spare us the "why aren't they out catching real criminals" complaints.

As for the drink driving classes, they sound like they were sensible and well-run; you could have got something positive from them. Instead you chose to treat this opportunity to mitigate your offense as a chance to poke fun at the two women running the course, who were sincerely trying to help you.

Still, I'm sure the fee for writing this article will contribute towards paying off your drink-driving fine, so it's served some sort of useful purpose. Cheers!

Matt

May 1st, 2009 9:27am Report this comment

Well it sounds like you had a lot of fun, and got 3 months off your ban. That's great, you can be riding/driving through red lights whilst intoxicated again that bit quicker and putting other people's lives at risk.
You've had a cheap laugh at the expense of people who were trying to help you, your response - going to the pub afterwards makes me think you didn't take this at all seriously, probably just a minor inconvenience was it. I've never read any of your work, and I'm not minded to read any in the future. Shame on you.

Michael Birbeck

May 1st, 2009 10:13am Report this comment

While not dismissing the serousness of drink driving, I must admit I had a good laugh as a result of reading your article. As for the po-faced commentators clucking around here, I suggest that they look up the meaning of humour and its ability to inform and educate. I do not discern any intent to dicredit the two ladies involved here but am apt to enjoy the ironies that life throws our way.

David Short

May 1st, 2009 2:45pm Report this comment

" Had I not heard of motorcyclists mounting the pavement and killing pedestrians and small children in pushchairs?"

Not in the early hours of the morning, I haven't.

I reckon I'd have opted to wait 12 more weeks to get my license back rather than listen to these silly women.

How much closer we seem to get to thought control and Big Brother in our everyday affairs in the UK.

Very sad.

Daniel

May 2nd, 2009 7:50am Report this comment

You're quite right David. Drink driving is perfectly safe when carried out in the early hours of the morning. How silly of me to think differently!

Fascist state, Nu Liebour, 1984 all over again etc etc etc.

David Short

May 2nd, 2009 10:04pm Report this comment

Daniel, you make yourself sound silly. You need no help from me.

I am a cyclist in London. I am more afraid of the everyday careless 'sober' driver than this senior chap on a scooter at one in the morning.

Frank

May 2nd, 2009 10:20pm Report this comment

Totalitarian - and I'm a non-driver by choice.

Fergus Pickering

May 3rd, 2009 2:08pm Report this comment

I was going to say that you acted like a bit of a prat but some of these postings made me change my mind. Good on you, sport. There is nobody, nobody with teenage daughters who hasn't at an unexpected summons, driven out to pick them up from unsalubrious spots in the middle of the night. And unless we are to remain for ever sober (Good God!) sometimes we will be over the limit. And I didn't think your laughs were cheap. They were quite good laughs. Were you a prefect at public school? I don't know, I just wondered.

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