“Alcoblow” mathematics; is it a worthy investment?

 By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

09 February 2014

Preeyesh Shah is wondering about the mathematics of the alcohol breathalyser – popularly known as “Alcoblow”. He writes: “If the whole country started drinking two less beers everyday, how much money would the taxman lose, compared to how much they make everyday from fines?”

I think Preyesh’s approach would make the calculation difficult because the data required is almost impossible to get. First we would need to know the number of people who drink beer in Kenya. We could then multiply that by two to get the number of bottles “lost”, but that would be wrong.

You see, not every beer drinker takes more than two bottles daily: I know very many who only drink on weekends. It is difficult to estimate their number, but perhaps the marketing departments of the brewers have that kind of data.

The better approach would be to use information available on the ground. That is, to ask the brewers to report the reduction in daily sales volumes (if any) since the introduction of the breathalyser.

Still, even with that data, I do not think the information would be of any value. I say this because the objective of the breathalyser is NOT to raise government revenue through court fines. The investment in these gadgets will be recovered through the increase in road safety (if any). The court fines are a deterrent to stop people from driving while drunk.

In other words, even if no one was actually charged in court but the accident rate dropped due to the fear of being caught, the breathalyser would still be a worthwhile investment.

Preeyesh was also wondering about the amount of money the government is losing as result of the restrictions imposed on night travel for buses. He writes: “Assuming that one bus can only travel so much per day, and therefore, halving the time would automatically halve the distance and hence the fuel usage (and the tax element of the fuel). This does not factor the loss to the economy from delivering half the people to their destinations.”

My response on the question of lost revenue by government is similar to what I wrote above on the issue of the breathalyser – that is, it doesn’t matter and therefore it is not worth calculating.

However, the question about the loss to the economy is worth considering. This is because we might save people from accidents but then end up killing them through poverty arising from economic stagnation.

Now, I used to be a truck driver in the 1980s (yes!) and I do recall there was a period when the government banned lorries from travelling between 6pm and 6am. The reason at that time was to curb the movement of smuggled goods.

Before the ban, we would make three round trips between Nairobi and Mombasa each week. During the ban, that number did not change. But there was a slight increase in operational expenses because of additional cost of lodging facilities (we slept out more nights) and greater wear of tyres due to extended driving on sun-baked tarmac.

Drawing from that experience, I don’t think the loss is significant – especially compared to the expected reduction in road accidents.