ABSTRACT
Between the 1890s and the late 1950s a handful of government initiatives failed to make an impact on British attitudes towards drink driving. Throughout this 60-year period most offenders escaped with a routine warning or minimal punishment. When cases were referred to higher courts, well-to-do private motorists frequently drew on the expertise of solicitors or barristers versed in the intricacies and contradictions of road-traffic law. Working-class drivers of vans, buses and trams usually pleaded guilty in a magistrate’s court and paid a fine. In exceptionally serious cases offenders from both groups could be charged with manslaughter. Throughout the period, libertarian pro-motorism ruled supreme, with drink driving occupying a no-man’s land between misdemeanour and quasi-criminality. Judged by early twenty-first-century standards, punishments were lenient to a degree (Willett 1965; Luckin 2010b: 365-8).
