John MacDonald: Our drink-driving laws are way out of whack

Author: John MacDonald,
Publish Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2026, 12:28pm

Tangiwai Arihia Heurea and her partner died when she was driving them home after a night of drinking and crashed in Ōpōtiki. Photo / Stock image 123rf

How weird is this? We don’t let people like bus drivers, taxi drivers and truckies drive with alcohol in their systems, but we let everyone else on the road do it.

Apart from people under-20. But everyone else, all good.

Now I know the difference between your average motorist and professional drivers - especially the likes of bus drivers and taxi drivers - is that they’re responsible for the safety of passengers.

But, just like the rest of us, they’re also responsible for the safety of every other road user around them.

And I think it’s time to do away with this double standard and it’s time we had have a zero alcohol limit for all drivers.

They do it in other countries. So why not here?

Because I think this coroner is pushing it uphill saying today that he hopes a case he’s been looking into reminds us of the dangers of drinking and driving.

I sense he’s also banging his head against the wall. Because Stephen Burdes is also saying today there’s nothing more he can add to what we already know about the dangers of drinking and driving.

So he’s just keeping his fingers crossed that, maybe, this latest example will get through to the muppets who think they’re perfectly fine to drive with a few drinks on board.

I don’t like the chance of that happening. Because how many times have we heard about people dying on the roads because of alcohol and nothing changes?

The case the coroner is referring today happened in February 2023.

Michael Sadler and Tangiwai Heurea were regulars at a place called Slim’s Bar in Ōpōtiki. And on the 10th of February 2023 they spent nearly eight hours there drinking.

They arrived at 5:30pm and left at 1:10am the next morning.

That would be their last night at Slim’s Bar. Crashing on the way home after their car left the road on a gentle corner.

They weren’t wearing seatbelts. But, more importantly, the driver - Tangiwai Heurea - had a blood alcohol level five times the legal limit.

They were discovered dead in their car the next day.

You could say that they weren’t the only ones at fault here. Anyone in that bar would have seen how trolleyed they were and could have done something.

The person in charge of the bar that night probably has a few questions to answer too.

But what it comes down to for me, is that we leave it up to individuals to decide whether they’re ok to drive or not. And that’s what makes it so fraught and dangerous.

Fraught and dangerous because of those who think they can handle their grog and they’ve got no problem driving home. Even if they’re a little bit tiddly.

Fraught and dangerous too because, even for the responsible types, it’s still a guessing game whether they should be driving or not.

And we should not be playing guessing games when it comes to drinking and driving.

The best way to remove the guesswork would be to make it easy as and tell people that, even if they have just one drink, they can’t drive.

Because, unless we do, people will keep on drinking and driving and dying. And coroners, like the one speaking out today, will keep on banging their heads against the wall.

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