"That's the one, that's the one," said my Brazilian guide, pointing angrily at a youthful policeman in Rio de Janeiro. The young man being harangued from across the street had had the audacity to stop our guide for driving while high on cannabis. "I told him I just wanted to get home," she said. "I had to pay him 20 real [$9] just to get rid of him. He was being ridiculous-everybody in Rio drives when they're stoned or drunk."
Not since an undergraduate at Oxford University tried to claim that Noah's ark was real have I struggled so much with an argument. Just as the normally rational student was convinced that the animals really did go in two by two, my Brazilian belle was happy to argue that drunk driving was an acceptable pastime. Her point was simple: Everybody in Rio drives drunk, therefore it must be OK-quad erat demonstrandum.
Such arguments tend to be commonplace in the developing world. Drive through Johannesburg in South Africa after midnight and there's every chance that your fellow road users will be drunk or stoned or both. It's little surprise that J'burg and Rio are two of the world's most dangerous cities-if the armed carjackers don't get you, the pissed drivers might.
Back in the 1960s drunk driving was also commonplace in the U.K. People would routinely clamber into their Morris Minor after eight pints of brown ale and drive home. It was part of a cozy English lifestyle that is no more. Today's generation, of which I am part, tends to regard drunk driving as an act of Beelzebub. We'd rather rob Grandma than have "one for the road."
This shift in attitudes occurred several years ago and was a huge victory for the vast army of PR boffins, politicians and do-gooders who'd campaigned for years against the evil liquor. But an army always needs someone to fight and an enemy to target, which is where our problems began. Rather than focusing on road safety per se, or even driving standards, they identified a much softer, more quantifiable target: speed.
The campaign against speed on this side of the pond has reached epic proportions. In 1996, around 250,000 motorists were prosecuted for speeding in the U.K. Last year, that figure topped 2.5M in a country whose total population numbers just 56M. More than 6,000 speed cameras now litter the U.K.'s highways, and some generate more than ?1M in fines each year. Speed enforcement has become a massive and self-perpetuating industry-the more motorists are caught, the more money there is to spend on new cameras.
These developments might have been met with widespread support had there been a significant reduction in road deaths. Fatality rates fell 35 percent from 1978-88, but since the arrival of cameras in the late '90s there has been no significant reduction-the number of fatalities actually went up in 2003. And this is despite a dramatic increase in vehicle safety.
The massive growth in speed enforcement has created social problems. The cameras are arbitrary. They are just as likely to catch a motorist doing 5 mph over the speed limit on a deserted road at 3 a.m. as they are to prosecute an idiot speeding past a school at home time. Brits are finding it difficult to reconcile being prosecuted for speeding with living in a country that only recently "forgot" to extradite a thousand convicted murderers, thieves and rapists.
For the first time, the middle-classes are being dragged into conflict with the law. The English "bobby on the beat" is being undermined by an electronic know-it-all that causes stress and resentment. Last year more than 31,000 people were banned from driving, and convictions have become so common that insurance companies no longer take notice of a first offense.
And the crusade is gathering strength. New SPECS cameras use number plate technology to measure the average speed of a car going from point A to point B. Cars fitted with GPS tracking devices are being tested. These compare the car's position with a built-in database of speed limits; if the car is exceeding the limit, the brakes will be automatically applied, irrespective of the situation. Some experts are already predicting that such systems will be compulsory within twenty years.
The consequences of this for car enthusiasts and manufacturers are self-evident, and don't think this is a peculiarly British disease. Brazil might have a laissez-faire attitude toward drunk driving, but speed cameras are ever-present. And anyone trying to outrun the gangs of Johannesburg must remember to smile at the camera. No American driver can afford to rest easy, either.
The global argument is that speed kills. Not inappropriate or irresponsible speed, but speed per se. If we can slow everybody down, say the do-gooders, no one will get killed. The same argument, taken to its logical conclusion, dictates that we should all stay in bed... preferably with a beautiful, stoned Brazilian.