“Very little” of French “have made special arrangements” for New Years Eve, ensures this Thursday on franceinfo Anne Lavaud, general delegate of the road prevention association which publishes its annual barometer for the evening of December 31. Among the figures published by the association, a third of the French think that it is enough to wait a little if one has drunk before getting behind the wheel or only a third have made special arrangements for this New Year’s Eve.
franceinfo: What data marks you the most in this barometer?
Anne Lavaud: The good news is that 80% of French people plan to party, in any case celebrate the end of the year and move into 2022 by partying so that’s good news. . What they are telling us is that they will consume a little less alcohol, knowing that those who have decided to party with friends are roughly five drinks into the evening. Nevertheless, there are still a large number who will be back behind the wheel that evening. Among these, there are very few who have made special arrangements, but we know very well that on the 31st it is not a surprise evening. We can anticipate it and above all, we can anticipate its return.
What are the specific arrangements to be made?
He’s our famous evening captain. Except that the evening captain, we must not forget to appoint him in the early evening and not at four in the morning, just when getting back behind the wheel. There are two other solutions which, for us, are good solutions. It is obviously to sleep on the spot. So when we say sleep, it’s not sleeping curled up for two hours in an armchair, it’s having a real night’s sleep. And then there is the solution which consists in using these small breathalyzers that are now found in all the departments of supermarkets, next to alcohol departments or in wine merchants and which allow the degree of alcohol to be measured precisely in three seconds. alcohol and whether it is safe to get back behind the wheel. For us, it’s great that these breathalyzers are now available very easily. They are affordable. It costs one euro and above all, you have to use them.
There are also applications for mobile phones, kinds of tests that allow you, depending on what you have been drinking, to know whether it is reasonable or not to get behind the wheel. Do you trust these tools?
These applications work on the declarative, that is to say that you will enter your age, your alcohol consumption. And that’s where the shoe pinches because when you ask the French to estimate their alcohol consumption, it’s very complicated. We are talking about two glasses, two doses “bar”, but these are indeed the doses that are served in restaurants or cafes. But if you come to my place and I serve you a whiskey with a “bar” dose, you will find me a little stingy. And therefore the glasses that are served at home are much more generous than these famous doses bars. The reality is, you think you’ve had two drinks and you’ve had three, four, or even five.
Another element highlighted by the barometer is the bad solutions in which around a third of French people still believe.
These false good ideas have been circulating everywhere and for generations. There are a third who are considering these false good ideas of driving with the windows open or drinking a spoonful of oil before you go. But what is most dramatic is that we have almost half of young people who offer us these false good ideas to solve the issue of driving and alcohol. They must be defeated.