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Drunk driving case raises flap Lobby protests after breathalyser test judged irrelevant (ANSA) - Rome, March 2 - A bizarre drunk-driving acquittal sparked controversy in Italy on Thursday . Police and lobbies campaigning to cut road deaths condemned a Sardinian ruling that over-the-limit breathalyser tests weren’t proof a driver couldn’t handle a car safely - a verdict hailed by the defence as "revolutionary" . "This is devastating, not revolutionary," said one association . "What will they have to do to prove someone is drunk? The only thing left, we suppose, are blood tests. "Suspects will overrun emergency rooms, doctors will use up needles and syringes, labs will have to go into overdrive and no one will be left patrolling the roads" . "Only autopsies are good enough for some judges, apparently" . "Thank goodness Italy does not apply the Anglo-Saxon principle whereby all rulings set precedents," said the association, Friends of the Police (ASAPS) . Other groups called for the head of the Sardinian judge who ruled Wednesday in the case of a 22-year-old Roman caught with more than twice the legal amount of alcohol in his breath after a midsummer disco trip . The judge, Vincenzo Cristiano, upheld the defence attorney’s argument that being over the limit didn’t "necessarily" mean you couldn’t drive properly . According to figures provided by lobbying groups, Italy performs less than 200,000 breathalyser tests a year compared to five million in Spain and eight million in France - two countries which have cracked down on drunk driving . "These countries are set to meet a 2010 deadline of halving road deaths, but we won’t. In Italy we have to put up with joke sentences that overturn scientific evidence," ASAPS said . Government lawyers, however, pointed out that Italy’s own campaign against drunk driving had led to a record number of convictions and lost licenses last year . They voiced confidence that the Olbia sentence would be a one-off . | |