[Should courses for alcohol intoxicated automobile drivers be legally introduced? An answer based on public...

The author is scientific collaborator at the Federal Road Traffic Institution and was a member of the project-group "courses for conspicuous motorists". He wants to put forward his following considerations as a basis for discussion. The courses are presumably without any effect, at best they have got a limited effect. In spite of this missing or very limited effect of the courses the calculation on cost and benefit has a positive result. The positive result is almost exclusively to be attributed to the shortening of the period of disallowance to drive. Post-schooling therefore may be seen as an expensive roundabout way to produce a shortening of periods of disallowance. If the given framework will not be changed, post-schooling in it's given area of measures fails to work for it's traffic-political aim and should not be legally validated. The quota of accidents caused by alcohol is presumably higher than the official traffic accident statistics shows. Therefore it can not be excluded that the costs of accidents caused by alcohol are up to 70 per cent higher than the calculations show, which are made on the basis of the number of alcohol-accidents statistically found out so far. The problem "alcohol in road traffic" is a part of the social problem "alcohol". Analyses on effectiveness and on cost and benefits, which are confined to the sector of road traffic, are reflecting the problems insufficiently and are leading to an undervaluation of the total dimension of cost and benefits. The failure of post-schooling for alcohol conspicuous motorists as well as the unsufficient effectiveness of the whole relevant measure practice should be a reason for a new valuation and new orientation of all of the measures in the area of "alcohol in road traffic". Position and effectiveness of post-schooling should be a matter of discussion in that process.