A Never-Ending Passing of the Buck? The Failure of Drink-Driving Reform in Interwar Britain

Abstract

Little has been written about the history of drink driving. This paper interrogates the issue in interwar Britain. It focuses on the problems facing reformers determined to rouse the public to the dangers posed by drink-associated impairment, as distinct from gross drunkenness. The contribution begins with an outline of earlier twentieth century anti-drink-driving law. This is complemented by an account of the activities of an informal and distinguished scientific pressure-group, with close links to the temperance-influenced Society for the Study of Inebriety. In conclusion, this paper examines the failure of the reform movement and the manner in which the Ministry of Transport and the Home Office subverted and blocked pressure for legislative change.

Keywords:

• Drink Driving
• Drunkenness
• Impairment
• Ministry of Transport
• Road Traffic Accidents
• Society for the Study of Inebriety

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my referees and the editors of Contemporary British History for their exceptionally close readings of successive drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank, again, the Wellcome Trust for their support of my work on road traffic accidents in twentieth century Britain. (Grant No. 077670/Z/05/Z)

Notes

 [1] For an excellent account of the ‘triumph’ of the internal combustion engine see Ladd, Autophobia, 13–42; and for specifically British developments, Moran, On Roads. For trenchant interpretation of conflict between pedestrians and drivers in the United States—the most heavily motorized nation in the world—see Blanke, Hell on Wheels; and North, Fighting Traffic . See also the latter's ‘Jaywalking’.

 [2] Emsley, ‘Mother, What Did Policemen Do’.

 [3] The most reliable legal account is Light, Criminalizing Drinking Drivers.

 [4] There is no full history of the PA but useful information may be derived from Spray, History of the PA.

 [5] Reliable long-period data on road traffic fatalities in twentieth century Britain have been assembled by Broughton, ‘Road Accident Statistics’, 18–22. On the ‘cult of speed’ see Foley, Why Britain Needs a Driving Test; Foley, Pace that Kills; Dean, Murder Most Foul.

 [6] The development of comparative drink-driving legislation is comprehensively covered in Evans, Traffic Safety and the Driver, 192–8.

 [7] British Medical Association, Tests for Drunkenness.

 [8] Stone, ‘Causal Stories’.

 [9] Gusfield, Culture of Public Problems.

[10] Officials noted in particular a long-standing shortage of female officers able to provide ‘protection’ when male GPs or police surgeons administered BMA-validated sobriety tests. Prudery and embarrassment clearly played a role. So, also –probably more so than in the case of male members of the private owning elite—did the chasm-like class differential between a typical arresting officer and a typical woman driver. These hints may be derived from National Archives (NA) MT 92/36. ‘Road Traffic Bill—House of Commons’. Draft memorandum by J.M. Ross, 18 July 1955. For useful treatment of motoring and gender in general in interwar Britain see O'Connell, Car in British Society, 43–76; and Jeremiah, Representations of British Motoring.

[11] In addition to Light, Criminalizing the Drink Driver, see Willett, Criminals on the Road, 64–105. For critiques of the legislation of 1872, see House of Lords Debates, 1923–1924, vol. 56, col. 191, 19 February 1924. Lord Parmoor. Incisive near-contemporary comment on interwar road traffic law in relation to alcohol may also be found in Fairlie, Road Safety and Alcohol and the same author's Road Accidents and Alcohol .

[12] Fairlie, Road Safety and Alcohol, 4.

[13] Copnall, Administration of Highway Law, 454.

[14] For a full account of the motoring provisions of the bill see H. of L. Debs., 1923–1924, vol. 56, cols. 791–6, 18 March 1924. See also Lieck and Morrison, Criminal Justice Act, 81–3.

[15] The case in question was R v. Presdee (1927), Crown Appeal Reports, 1927, 95. See also Havard, Relation of Alcohol, 95.

[16] British Medical Association, Tests for Drunkenness. See also ‘Tests for Drunkenness’, British Medical Journal, i, 1927, 345; and ‘The Tests for Drunkenness’, Lancet, 209, 1927, 446.

[17] See ‘Medicine and the Law: Motorist's Assent to Medical Examination’, Lancet, 226, 1935, 576; and Ley, Drink Driving Law, 3.

[18] Smith, Alcohol and Behaviour, 25.

[19] The Royal Commission on Transport , 1929, 13; Hutchinson, Road Traffic, 3 and 28. See also, Parry, Motorists and the Law, 21; and Rees and Denis, Road Traffic Acts, 39.

[20] ‘Owner-Driver’, Motor Accidents, 31.

[21] This view was strongly expressed by the Special Committee of the British Medical Association in 1935. See British Medical Association, Relation of Alcohol to Road Accidents, 104.

[22] ‘Medicine and the Law’, British Medical Journal, ii, 1935, 576.

[23] ‘Motorists and Alcohol: Efficiency Impaired’. The Times, 15 June 1935, 14.

[24] ‘Tests for Drunkenness’, British Medical Journal, i, 1927, 446.

[25] See Willett, Criminals on the Road, 106–21.

[26] Ley, Drink Driving Law, 4.

[27] Fairlie, Road Accidents and Alcohol, 4–5.

[28] Fairlie, Road Safety and Alcohol, 7.

[29] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, q. 245. Evidence of A.L. Dixon.

[30] Taylor, ‘Forging the Job’, 127.

[31] Fairlie, Road Safety and Alcohol.

[32] Gourvish, ‘Business of Alcohol’.

[33] Ministry of Transport, Preliminary Report, 18, Table XI; Vernon, Accidents and their Prevention, 167; British Medical Association, Relation of Alcohol to Road Accidents, 4 and Report on Fatal Road Accidents , 8.

[34] Vernon, Road Accidents in Wartime, 92–5.

[35] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, qs. 594–6. See, also, H.A. Tripp, Road Traffic and the same author's Town Planning , both of which advocated the near-total segregation of pedestrians and motorized traffic.

[36] Berridge, ‘Society for Study of Addiction’, 1031.

[37] See Burnham, Accident Prone, 51–66 and Greenaway, Drink and British Social Policy, 91–113.

[38] Burnham, Accident Prone, 67–86.

[39] Mosso, Fatigue. See also Rabinbach, Human Motor, 134–62.

[40] Kraepelin, Memoirs, 70–2.

[41] Rivers, Influence of Alcohol, 58.

[42] On Greenwood's contribution see, Magnello and Hardy, ‘Introduction of Medical Statistics’.

[43] Vernon et al., ‘Influence of Alcohol’.

[44] Central Control Board, Alcohol, 125–6, 128–9.

[45] A concise account of the state of the art at that time may be found in Starling, Action of Alcohol.

[46] On simulation see Myers, Textbook of Experimental Psychology. See also the related and path-breaking war-time work on delayed reaction times by Dodge and Benedict, Psychological Effects of Alcohol. For the use of simulation techniques to select drivers for public transportation systems see Burnham, Accident Prone, 67–85.

[47] Widmark, Principles and Applications. This breakthrough was complemented by Leonard Greenberg's research in the early 1940s into the temporal peaking and waning of the impact of varying amounts of alcohol on drivers. See American Medical Association, Manual of Medico-Legal Aspects, 27.

[48] Heise, ‘Alcohol and Automobile Accidents’ and Holcomb, ‘Alcohol in Relation to Traffic Accidents’.

[49] For patterns of alcohol consumption in interwar Britain see Gourvish, ‘Business of Alcohol’ and Greenaway, Drink and British Politics, 111–2. On the SSI see Berridge, ‘Society for Study of Addiction’; and Woiak, ‘Medical Dictator to Oppose King Alcohol’.

[50] On Vernon see ‘H.M. Vernon D.M.’, British Medical Journal, i, 1951, 419 and ‘Horace Middleton Vernon M.A. D.M. Oxfd.’, The Lancet, 257, 1951, 477. Courtenay Weeks is an under-documented figure but see Munson et al., ‘Dr Courtenay C. Weeks, (1872–1947)’, 73–7.

[51] Weeks, Science and Alcohol, 26. See, also, Anon, ‘Memoranda’, 64–7.

[52] Weeks, ‘Intoxicated Motor-Drivers’, 13. See also Weeks, Cocktails, 9–10.

[53] Allen, Verdict of Science, 5.

[54] Weeks (ed.), Evidence before Royal Commission on Licensing, 66.

[55] >Weeks (ed.), Evidence before Royal Commission on Licensing, 70–1.

[56] >Weeks (ed.), Evidence before Royal Commission on Licensing, 71–2.

[57] For a comprehensive account of Newshome's astonishingly wide range of interests see, Eyler, Sir Arthur Newsholme.

[58] ‘Motorists and Alcohol: Deputation to the Minister of Transport’, The Times, 21 May 1931, 11.

[59] ‘Alcohol and the Motorist’, The Times, 3 August 1934, 14.

[60] House of Commons Debates, 1935–1936, vol. 309, col. 1438, 4 March 1936. Dr Alfred Salter, Member for Bermondsey.

[61] British Medical Association, Report of a Special Committee, 4. The Medical Research Council resented the fact that the BMA had been asked to investigate the subject by the MoT. See NA MT 34/155. Edward Mellanby to Sir Cyril Hurcomb. 5 February 1935.

[62] H. of C. Debs., 1935–1936, vol. 309, col. 1438, 4 March 1936. Dr Alfred Salter.

[63] Miles, ‘Address to the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Highway Research Board’, 106–7. See also the same author's Alcohol and Human Efficiency .

[64] See, Tripp, Road Traffic and Town Planning.

[65] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, q. 450.

[66] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, qs. 454–5.

[67] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, q. 450

[68] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, q. 459.

[69] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, qs. 5, 463–7.

[70] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, 17–9.

[71] For probably the most savagely scathing attack of all, see Dean, Murder Most Foul.

[72] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, 14 and 33. See also Dean, Murder Most Foul, 90–9.

[73] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, 14 and 33. See also, Dean, Murder Most Foul, 2.

[74] For full context here, see Plowden, Motor Car; O'Connell, Car and British Society; Moran, ‘Crossing the Road’.

[75] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, 42, 44, 55–6. Evidence of A.T.V. Robinson.

[76] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, q. 64. Evidence of C.A. Birtchnell.

[77] H of L Debs., 1955–1956, vol. 197, col. 854, 12 June 1956. Lord Lucas.

[78] NA MT 34/155, anon., ‘Ministerial Briefing’, 31 July 1935.

[79] NA MT 34/155, anon., ‘Briefing Note for the Minister’, 25 November 1937.

[80] Report of Select Committee on Prevention of Road Accidents, q. 312. Evidence of A.L. Dixon.

[81] NA MT 34/356, A.T.V. Robinson, ‘Lords Committee on Accidents’, 2 November 1938.

[82] NA MT 34/356, anon., ‘Select Committee of the House of Lords on Prevention of Road Accidents’, n.d. but probably 1939.

[83] NA MT 34/356, ‘A Memorandum by the Minister of Transport on the Report by the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Prevention of Road Accidents’, n.d. but probably 1939, 12.

[84] NA MT 55/309, ‘Special Inquiry into Accidents’, 3 March 1940.

[85] NA HO 45/19820, ‘Recommendations on the Alness Report: Observations of the Home Office’, n.d. but probably July 1945.

[86] H. of L. Debs., vol. 307, col. 405, 8 December 1937.

[87] Vernon, Accidents in Wartime, 97. See also Luckin, ‘War on the Roads’.

[88] O'Connell, Car in British Society and Moran, ‘Crossing the Road’.

[89] Moran, ‘Crossing the Road’.

[90] Luckin, ‘A Degree of Concensus on the Roads’.

[91] Anon, ‘Sir Rodney Page’.

[92] Drew ‘Effect of Small Doses of Alcohol’.

[93] Stone, ‘Causal Stories’, 298.