I sometimes wish in my industry there was a way to discuss this subject away from the ivory tower pariah sentiment that society has created, and have a properly balanced, adult, unemotional discussion about other matters in context. A discussion without all the childlike hysteria that accompanies (as humans do)
Being drunk doing anything with machinery is obviously not a good thing, but I have my feelings about the day after blood alcohol level marmite way that the public have been taught. At least in my field.
For instance. I have never worked with anyone (and I’ve had a few very very serious things happen in my time) who’s had some the night before who didn’t perform when “it” happened. What I can say is I’ve operated with people who never touched alcohol who by their lack of of good crew cohesion render performance far worse in an emergency than someone who might have “had a couple the previous day”.
This is small fry compared to the overriding industry evidence that fatigue is far far far more dangerous than any residual booze. It’s ok to land a 747 having been awake for 30 hours. But bloody guess what. The public think that’s A Ok. Oh yes. The government haven’t yet instructed us to villifiy each other for that yet. If they were - every airline, ship and lorry would be grounded.
Driving drunk is very bloody wrong, but when discussing the wider issue regarding the day after thing it pays a learned man to think openly from outside your sources of public influence in the wider discussion context