Changes you would make to drunk driving laws?

Great Debates
21

Was not a straw man, was a glass man ::: sheesh :::

Ahhh, But I don’t like you… I need no more reason for that than you do for harsh penalties…
I think there should be an breathalyzer and tester for all the conditions that the FAA will ground a pilot also. I also think there needs to be a physical exam and an yearly test regardless of the cost, to keep all off the road that can’t pass the test anymore. I also feel that all drinkers of alcohol should have there licenses removed for one month ever time they drink because drinking shows a total lack of concern for the public at large.

Antihistamines, rounded. Blood pressure meds, grounded. Anti-depressant meds, grounded. Why should operators of automobile have more relaxed rules for drinking and other bad behaviours driving than aircraft pilots? Put a tester on each car. Won’t start with ANY alcohol on the breath, If caught bypassing, mandatory 10 years hard labor with no parole or visits. Nothing is too hard for drunk drivers. The scum…

Yepper, nail them to the ground and stomp them.

Better now? :smack:

22

Please tell me you’re joking. You feel drunk driving shouldn’t be illegal until you’ve actually hit somebody? Until you get a body in the morgue?

23

The car breathalyzer has already been mentioned. I think that’s the best way to handle it–instead of taking away the driver’s mobility (which is nearly unenforceable), just make him prove he’s sober before he can drive, on his own time and at his own expense.

24

How about restricting them to not driving between the hours of, say, 8:00 pm and 5:00 am or on weekends at all? That would allow them to get to work and run a few errands but not drive during the prime drinking hours.

25

Don’t be too hard on him. This would be a pretty valid idea in some theories of criminal justice. Only an actual infliction of harm would be penalized. Preventative penalties, meant to discourage risky behaviour but enforced even if such harmful consequence doesn’t occur, aren’t necessarily a great thing. The incentive not to drive drunk in our current system is either A.) concern for your own safety, or B.) fear of getting pulled over. Under the system he proposed, replace B with the fear of harsh penalties should an accident occur.

The problem of course is that most people take a “it will never happen to me” attitude. Most people think they drive better than average when sober, but of course no more than 50% of people actually drive better than average by definition of the word “average.” Similiarly, alot of people driving drunk might take the attitude that they’ll never get in a wreck and thus never incur a penalty.

Of course, this is not a unique problem in the law. Generally there’s no duty to warn of an open and obvious danger, and plaintiffs are barred recovery from injuries in those cases. However, many people might be aware of the danger yet assume it will not affect them, that they can get away with doing the dangerous thing with the product “just this once”…then BOOM, their face is blown off, maybe even injuring others. People do take attitudes like this all the time, the question is when to impose legal duties and penalties to shortcircuit the human thought process and make the safe decision for somebody regardless of their wishes. People generally consider it prudent to do that with drunk driving, taking away a potentially dangerous choice from the individual to prevent harm to himself and others, but it wouldn’t have to be that way.

26

From here. (UK laws)

I think it is the mentality of the car culture in America needs to be addressed. Driving is a privilege, not a right. The removal of a privilege is NOT the invasion of a right. No one deserves to have a driving licence, unless they can demonstrate competence, and act within the laws.

My change would be to make the US laws equitable with the UK laws, and punish anyone who is irresponsible enough to believe they are above these laws.

So that allows them to have a few over lunch, with no harm done? Sure thing…
The point is not to merely inconvenience someone, it is to take from them the privilege of driving because they thought the laws did not apply to them.

And remember, just because your glorified president does it, doesn’t make it in any way big or clever.

27

Still straw men. I don’t think my idea is unreasonable.

People who drive while seriously drunk pose a very real danger to the rest of us. If you are so drunk that you can hardly walk and still think that it is a good idea to drive a car then I don’t want you on the roads anymore. On the other had if you are just barely above the legal limit and make a slight mistake in judgement I don’t think the law should be as harsh with you.

Basically I would like to see a more teared system of punishment. By .15 you are running a much higher risk of killing someone then if you blow a .08. If you can prove to me that any of the things you mentioned increased your chance of getting in a fatal accident by 380% then I would be in favor to taking their licenses too.

http://www.madd.org/stats/0,1056,4840,00.html
http://www.madd.org/stats/0,1056,1112,00.html

28

Couldn’t I just get a friend /passer-by / whoever to blow into the tube for me?? How does the car know it’s me doing the blowing? Is there more to it than that? :confused:

29

It might be a “valid” theory of criminal justice, but it would be a wrong one. I’m not going to hijack this thread to discuss the propriety of preventive legislation, though.

30

I will. :smiley:

Preventive criminal legislation, at least as currently enacted in our system, is the great bane of criminal justice in our time.
Millions of drug users are or have been in jail because some of them might become addicted and, once addicted, may commit other crimes;
Prostitutes and johns go to jail or pay fines because some prostitutes might spread disease and/or cause divorces;
Billions are paid in speeding fines because some speeders might cause accidents;
Etc.

Preventive criminal legislation is fine if an actual cost/benefit analysis is done. Too often, the only thing considered is the cost of the activity to be criminalized, and the costs of criminalization are never considered.

Personally, I think a cost/benefit analysis of drunk driving laws would demonstrate they are justified, primarily because they impose minimal costs on drivers. However, the costs of roadblocks and of dropping the legal BAC level down to some of the ludicrously low levels now enacted in some states are higher than the benefits received, and such laws should be scrapped.

There is another problem with criminalizing very low BAC levels - inconsistency. As a WAG, a BAC of .05% probably impairs a driver, and causes as much risk to other drivers and pedestrians, as much as driving on, say, 5 hours of sleep. But driving on 5 hours of sleep - also a voluntary choice - is legal.

Sua

31

The most important thing is to stop the behavior.

Anyone arrested for DUI should not be released until their blood level is below “x”, and their car should be keep for a short period, maybe 12 hours–there’s always a possibility the police missed booze in the car.

I don’t believe severe punishment is always necessary to get them to stop nor do I believe punishment will always get them to stop either.

For first time DUI, where there is no damage, I would focus on the person’s ability to stop drinking not on the driving aspect. If they drink, they might drive and if they can completely abstain from drinking for an extended period of time, then I think that’s about as good an indication of future behavior as we can get. We can’t follow them around the rest of their lifes.

So require them to go to some police station, any station, every 2-3 days for a month or so and do the breathalzer. If they fail to show up or show any alcohol at all during this time period, they are to be arrested, jail or alcohol rehab, followed by a longer period of supervision.

32

You want to hear about a hardship on the wife and kids? My neighbor decided to drive his eight-year-old daughter home from a party on the fourth of July while drunk. That eight year old did not have a choice to drink or not to drink. That eight year old did not have the choice to not get in that car. The accident happened about a block from my house. The world is now less one asshole and one beautiful eight year old.

That was pretty hard for the wife to take. Having her whole family die and all.

Driving drunk is completely unacceptable. It shows a blatant disregard for human life. It’s one of the vilest things I can think of. I think that being taken off the road for the safety of everyone else is a more than reasonable measure, and in fact is not as severe a punishment as I’d like to see.

33

Here in Michigan this method is used. I know someone who had a breathalyzer installed in his car after 2 DUI’s, and had it for a year. He had to blow into it every time he wanted to drive. I asked him about this idea, and he said yes, you probably could get someone else to do it for you, but if you had a sober friend along then why would you be the one driving? Also, he had to keep blowing in the thing every so often, so the friend would have to stay with you. It kept track of his readings, and reported what the results were, which he had to report to the police. If he failed even one the penalties were huge. He had to pay for this system himself, as well as the regular fines.

If he failed one because of a bad reading (the test would give false positives from mouthwash, some foods, etc.) he had to immediately report this to the police and explain why the test was positive. They were understanding if this happened. After a year with no problems he was allowed to have it removed. IIRC, this system was used as a probation period, after his liscence was suspended completely for a time.

It worked well in his case, he stopped drinking completely. I guess you could always find a way around it (if he drove someone else’s car), but it works better than just suspending someone’s liscence. Not many people would be willing to lend their car to a drunk. You also can’t get away with blowing air out of a bottle, or some such, as it reads body temperature.

One of the most effective ideas I have heard of.

34

Oh oh oh!

I know what I’d change!

Currently in many places, if you are underage you face the full penalties of a DUI if you have ANY alcohol in your blood. You can be arrested, risk your license, etc. for driving home the morning after a party and having a BAC of .01.

This is ridiculous. If the purpose of drunk driving laws are to prevent unsafe driving, then they should be enforced at the point where driving becomes unsafe. If they want to crack down on underage drinking, this is not the place to do it. I’d rather have responsible Bob who drank one beer at the beginning of the evening drive home than have Drunk Dylan drive himself home because Responsible Bob is afraid of getting arrested for a .01 BAC.

35
36

:: Sigh:::::, now to try and answer instead of hitting the wrong button. ::: sigh ::

In Conceivable… You are preaching to the choir.

11+ plus years sober, not a drop nor a chemical.

You cite a place that screams you have an “AGENDA”, not a reason …

Lots more kids get killed by irresponsible parents who leave stair gate open by accident or laziness, chemicals in lower cabinets, answer telephones when baby in is same yard a pool ad-Infiniti.

Just say that you hate demon rum with a fanatics lack of reason. Would be so much easier on your spastic meter.

My 18 year old daughter was Murdered, want to cal the police and check THAT story? I will provide you with the number.

Get off the fanatical / absolutes. That is silly at best.

Power and the certainty of rightfulness are an appalling combination.
Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.
The scariest thing in the world is a do gooder with power!
The World is Round, Not Fair, Just Round.

Wanna play tragedy? I can play baby…

My life was ruined by an inattentive stone sober, just left church teenage girl. And you know what people I would imagine were just like you, her parents and folks that did not know what happened, just that she was a teen and I was on a motorcycle, were telling her, “It’s not your fault honey because he was on a motorcycle.”

The cops did not agree. The went to great lengths to note that 0% of the accident was my fault. It was ALL hers…

I do not campaign with strident stupidity about teen drivers. I don’t want them in a one mistake and they are down forever. Set of rules. :: sheesh :::

Never harmed a thing when I was driving before I sobered up. Gonna send me to prison or remove my driving privileges retroactively?

Get a grip…

37

Look GunNSpot, I seem to have hit a personal nerve that was not intended with my post.

I don’t have a personal agenda here. I am drinking a “demon rum and coke” right now. I linked to the MADD site because every site with stats listed the same ones. I just picked the one that listed them the best.

I am sorry about your daughter. I don’t want to play tragedy. We have all had our tragedies. You know nothing about mine and I know very little about yours. They aren’t a game to play.

I never said that I wanted to do anything to you personally retroactively and I never mentioned teen drivers.

Please don’t take personally that which is not meant to be.

38

Suspending or revoking someones license to drive will not always stop them from driving. Didn’t work for me. I did become a somewhat safer driver without papers.

Jail time, high monetary fines. To a point these might work. To me it seems that every time we as a people try and legislate a moral problem, we dig a hole that just gets full of mud. Thats just me

39

A coworker of mine got a DUI, then, a week later, got caught drunk AND without a license AND with a suspended license (2 charges, one for not physically having a license on him, and another for driving under a suspension).

He’s able to plea bargain down to just the charge of not having a physical license which is just a fine - he lucked out big time.

The night he showed up to court about it, another DUI. And he laughs about it.

Not really trying to make a point, I guess, just anecdotal. Some people have some weird problems.

40

This is exactly the point. It’s all too typical.

Elected officials will not support laws the majority of the public will not support, and the public will not support penalties for all DUIs severe enough to stop folks like your example.

That’s why I believe it’s important to separate the wheat from the shaft. Those DUIs who can show they can stop the drinking for a period after the first arrest should be treated one way, and those who don’t another.