Except it wasn't the point to set that for a single query. It's usually best to set RaiseError on the connection handle and wrap larger blocks of calls with an eval; that frees you from the responsibility of constantly checking $dbh->err. If you aren't already using RaiseError, I don't see how going through all the trouble to enable it for one query is better than the regular $dbh->err check.

Makeshifts last the longest.