I wonder how this varies across Europe.
In the US (and many N-regs in Europe are affected by this, if the pilots has standalone, not 61.75, FAA papers) you are asked about alcohol abuse at your medical. So if you have been done for drink driving, you have a problem. I don’t know the resolution procedure but IIRC John Denver got his papers back after some drink driving history. What I don’t know is whether there is an automatic notification from the US driving body to the FAA; I suspect there isn’t because it would require the police to know the suspect is a pilot (and search faa.gov).
In the UK, it is similar but wasn’t always thus. I recall one of my customers, 1970s, getting convicted of drink driving (12 month ban) so he flew to his factory in a helicopter, completely overtly. This is no longer possible but again I don’t know whether it is only because the question is asked at your AME medical. I doubt there is some automatic notification police → CAA.
Germany seems to be more strict. I’ve just read about a German pilot who accumulated 13 points while driving (no idea what that means in Germany; in the UK speeding gets you 3 and careless driving gets you 5) and when his 5-yearly ZUP came up, he had to get a report from some kind of psychologist, which is apparently quite difficult. Assuming the 13 points didn’t involve drinking, this is quite a hard regime. In the UK, drinking gets you 12 (IIRC) and zeroes the points count. According to this he could have got 13 just with parking offences, very easily.
What I don’t know is whether there is an automatic notification from the US driving body to the FAA; I suspect there isn’t because it would require the police to know the suspect is a pilot (and search faa.gov)
There is not, not least because automotive driver licensing is done by individual states and FAA is Federal. It is instead mandatorily declared by the pilot himself on his FAA Medical application.
(The police in the US BTW have nothing to do with any of the above except for issuing the initial court date for drunk driving. If subsequently convicted the court notifies the state drivers license authority – which could not notify FAA because there is no common database or ID number for that individual)
Peter wrote:
So if you have been done for drink driving, you have a problem
Drunk driving and alcohol abuse are two very different things. The latter often leads to the first, but that’s a different issue. I’m not sure what your question actually is, but in Norway there is no official automation in one or the other from the authorities that I am aware of. There have been issues of for instance SAS or Norwegian grounding pilots (for some period of time I think) that have been convicted for drunk driving, but that’s a purely corporate decision, and has made some discussions in the media.
This is all very much in the details also. As I understand it, in Norway, when/if you lose your driving license, you don’t actually lose your license specifically. What happens is that you no longer have the right to drive a motorized vehicle for the specified time. This means you cannot drive anything. You can however drive boats and aircraft.
Peter wrote:
I’ve just read about a German pilot who accumulated 13 points while driving (no idea what that means in Germany; in the UK speeding gets you 3 and careless driving gets you 5) and when his 5-yearly ZUP came up, he had to get a report from some kind of psychologist, which is apparently quite difficult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_system_(driving)
Anyone who is so careless to accumulate so many points and/or drives under influence just shows a blatant disregard for the safety of others. That person is certainly unfit for flying. Good riddance.
Interesting responses.
Norway allows you to be banned from driving, for any reason including alcohol, but you can still fly a plane.
Regarding points, from the wiki link, the points do expire, so you could accumulate lots, over years. In Germany, once you have 8 you are banned from driving for ever, until you have a psychological assessment. So I don’t know how that German guy could have 13 unless a ban does not zero them… FWIW, in the UK you get 3 for speeding, banned at 12, expire after 3 years, and during my youth, on motorbikes, I was permanently on 9, and had 9 when I went for my car driving test 
In Germany you get only 1-2 for speeding, here. Anyway, regardless of “good citizen” arguments, this ZUP / ZÜP is quite a vulnerability for flying. It is heavily criticised in Germany: From 2005 to 2009 there were already 1,391,000 background checks. 4,560 of them [returning a negative finding]. 0 [9-11 type] attacks by licensed German pilots
I would expect a driving ban due to alcohol to be a question at the medical, in most countries.
In France you start with 12 points and lose points fro speeding etc. You can in fact get some points back by going to a driving school.
You can fly an aircraft without a driving licence so one doesn’t have any effect on the other. Except you may have to find a different form of transport to get you to the aérodrome.🙂
You are asked how much alcohol you drink and how many you smoke a day on the medical form you need to fill out and take with you to the AME.
If you don’t show any adverse effects from the amount you are drinking then they might just advise you that maybe you should think about cutting down a little. Of course they could also insist that for your next medical you bring the results of a blood test or take a doppler.
https://www.caa.co.uk/media/scwpasth/20221005-v4-1-assessment-of-alcohol-and-substance-misuse.pdf
20221005_v4_1_assessment_of_alcohol_and_substance_misuse_pdf
CAA protocol for unfit/fit assessment is as above link. The trigger can also be third party notification.
Peter wrote:
this ZUP / ZÜP is quite a vulnerability for flying
This ZÜP is total bovine excrement that stems from the diseased mind of some administrative officer, because you are considered to be “unreliable” when they can’t rule out that possibility and you can’t really defend against that. Apparently it is sufficient to get charged with something, you don’t have to be convicted. I drive a bicycle through Berlin, I’ve almost been killed a few times by now – and guess what, the last time, the opposing side has reported me for traffic offenses because he thought it would aid his case.
Or just the other day, there were three wannabe mugger teenagers, trying to rob their peers. I helped and in the end had to restrain one of these. He continued to try to get his hand in his pocket, so I was quite rough in explaining him that I don’t want a knife in my kidney. His mother was so enraged by the mistreatment of her poor and innocent spawn when picking him up from the police station that I got a criminal complaint.
Yes, in all cases the charges were dropped, but since you can’t know what is under consideration with the ZÜP, you can’t even prepare. This is basically a secret court deceiding over the lives of the population – and no one cares! I mean, it’s just pilots, right? Scum of the earth, they pollute and they’re all filthy rich, so good riddance.
Basically this was meant to get all the unskilled menial work at the airports under control, you don’t want the baggage handlers to add bombs to the planes for religious reasons – and then someone realized that all you need is a private plane to access the airside. And there you have it.
I’m not saying I want bombs in my luggage, but since you can simply take a truck and murder lots of people to gain access to heaven, it’s just an unhealthy fixation on aviation. We can thank all the high profile hijacking terrorists of the 70s and the latent fear of flying of the populace for that.
Also, scraping the point limit for driving is not a thing to be proud of and this is at least one of the objective things one can take to check for reliability.
Gallois – are you sure that there is no question at the medical on whether you got banned from driving for drinking? Anyway, France must be EASA Part-MED compliant and what does that say?
MattL – a drinking driving ban is a “criminal offence” in the UK, so → unfit.
Be grateful there isn’t a comma after “alcohol/drugs” 
Note that a driving ban via totting-up (12+) does not affect your flying.
Inkognito – why don’t you tell us what you really think? (a joke)
I’m afraid to say I think as.far as GA is concerned the whole of Europe are going down the same road when it comes to access to airports which have commercial traffic.
Here it is called a CIME (okay its not quite as bad as the ZUP but its heading there)
If you fly in and out of these airports, especially if commercial traffic is using the airport at the same time, you will no longer be allowed to walk yourself and passengers to and from your aircraft without a security person to accompany you unless you have received CIME training and have the relevant documantation to prove it. The training costs even through the FFA.
This is the same as in a previous thread when AOPA started to offer it. This action, although not yet fully implemented can be seen if you want to fly to Caen. At times when there is an increase in commercial traffic, they discourage non based ga traffic as they do not have enough staff to check you in and out and take you to the aircraft. IMO this has the possibility of handling agents ripping off ga pilots or a huge queue of pilots taking a 1/2 day or 1 day security training course making all but diehard IR flyers take up the ULM and using more non commercial airfields.
