What next? Making us all buy an Easter Ham?

On July 1, 2012, France will require all drivers to have an unused breath-alcohol test in their glovebox.
he government's assumption that we all drink alcohol is offensive. The government's assumption that we all have the sense when drunk to actually test our alcohol levels is frighteningly ignorant.

 I doubt this new law has much to do with keeping people safe on the roads. Think about it. How would having an unused breath-alcohol test in your glove box prevent an accident? (If the cop pulling you over finds the kit used, or no kit at all, the fine is the same: 17 euros.) Now, if the law required you to have TWO breathalyzers in the car, that would make sense! Ideally, after a fine meal or an evening at a club, you’d use one test, come up sober, and take the wheel. If the cop pulled you over, you’d show the second, unused test.

 If France were truly concerned with keeping its citizens safe, it would put into place immediately the Loi Morange, the proposed law requiring landlords and homeowners to install smoke detectors in their dwellings. With 10,000 people perishing in household fires in France each year (compared with 4,000 road fatalities per annum) I cannot understand why the government has set the date for the Loi Morange to go into effect in July of 2015. Why such a long leadtime for something so inexpensive and so effective? Why no leadtime for this breathalyzer law?

Something is rotten in Denmark, er, France. Could it be that this breathalyzer law is less about keeping us safe and more about subtly snubbing the part of the French population that doesn’t drink? Another slight to the Muslims? (Oh, and the Mormons, too, although they only represent 0.05167 of the population here.) Can you imagine how the practicing Muslim must feel about being required to purchase and carry around an instrument he will never, ever need?

This law is as thoughtless as the weather girl announcing the Saint’s Day on the nightly news, or the ubiquitous fish on the Friday lunch special at every restaurant in this country. Hello? We are not all drinkers nor Catholics. If you require all of us to have this device in our cars as of July 1st, you should distribute it for free.