Drunk Driving

Great Debates
1

Ok Peeps…here I go again,

Another half drunken/half baked idea.

The last year I found data (2008) there were 13,846 alcohol related deaths on the roads of America (alcoholalert.com) down from 26,173 in '82. Close to 4x the current Iraq war total of 4,432. (antiwar.com)

Pass this sentence:
I think this is due to a combination of buckle-up campaigns, airbags and tighter DUI/DWI regulations pushed by MADD.

Me and people I have spoken with about this, think that the next step is Alcohol detection devices on the steering wheel as standard equipment on all cars.

Not saying a breathalizer, because I think that’s unhygenic, but something that I’m not sure has been invented yet, on the steering wheel. (we went to the moon muther fuckers)

Disclaimer:
I have 4 DUIs. I have never hit or hurt anyone, but if I had, I could never forgive myself as well as I’m sure most of the offenders.

Anecdotes:
While in jail for one of my Dueys I was met by an older guy who asked me what I was in for. I told him and when I asked him what he was in for he said, “After my father’s funeral me and my brother went out drinking,” which is standard fare for most in my demographic, “and on the ride home I lost control and killed my brother.”
His family didn’t want him to do time, as proved by his county sentence and not a prison term.

During a lot of the counseling I went through, everyone had a bad taste in their mouths because of their sentence. (in Illinois a second DUI is considered a Felony)

You pay 5k for a lawyer, do counseling, and lose your license. Fair objectively, but not a solution. People loose their jobs, become unproductive citizens and are a further supposed weights on society.

Who wins with the current system:
Lawyers, the judicial system, substance abuse counselors and cops.

Who loses:
MADD, and more impotantly victims and offenders.

With my proposed solution:

Winners:
Victims (Not saying there won’t be any because there will always be people who can circumnavigate the system. So I propose increasing the penalty for people who tamper with their cars.)
Offenders (Won’t loose their license and possibly their job.)
Society (Dramatically less sober vehicular casualties and more people being employable.)
Insurance Companies (Less claims)
Cops (more time to work on crazier shit)

Losers:
Auto companies (higher production costs)
Society (higher auto costs)
Lawyers/legal system (reduced work/fees for DUI related offenses)
Cops (Less arrests and OT for court cases)
MADD (Very little drunk driving. Hopefully, if their credo is what I think it should be, they can move to a skeleton crew to make sure the laws aren’t repealed.)

That’s my proposition. I have sent a letter to MADD but I’m not sure anyone got it.
P.S.
Keep the machines calibrated to allow the legal limit.

Their needs to be an emergency bypass system for emergencies.

P.S. sorry for all the commas

P.P.S. Goulet

2

I’m all for preventing DUIs, but I’d prefer not to be treated like a convicted criminal because other people don’t have the sense not to drink and drive.

3

Too bad this isn’t a pit thread. I’d have some really choice words for you.

But.

It is absolutely ludicrous that you perceive “the system” as creating “winners” in “Lawyers, the judicial system, substance abuse counselors and cops”. Newsflash: THEY WOULDN’T BE “WINNERS” IF PEOPLE DIDN’T DRIVE DRUNK.

Secondly, it is even more ludicrous that you think I should have to do anything other than turn on my car to be able to drive it because others can’t be trusted to take care of their own shit.

Thirdly, it is beyond the pale of comprehension that you can point out that the offender is a loser in the current system and then make the implied claim that they are somehow victimized by this.

You have a funny world view.

4

So, we have to invent a new technology, and maintain it fairly regularly, both at unknown cost, for what, exactly? This is all to prevent you and you buddies from driving drunk, because otherwise you are going to?

Well, let’s just say this happens. It takes a while (2-3 years?) to develop the technology. It takes a while (5-10 years being generous) to write and pass legislation to force car makers to install it. Remember, we can’t even get Congress to enact reasonable mileage requirements. So it’s 7-10 years until the cars start appearing on the road, and 30-50 years until all the old cars without the technology are gone.

And if the technology fails, or people find away around it, what do you propose be done with drunk drivers then?

5

I don’t know that I agree with enacting this proposal, but it’s evident that drunk drivers will not quit driving drunk. Saying we shouldn’t *have *to do this because they really shouldn’t drive drunk doesn’t change this fact one bit. Maybe we should tell them to Just Say No to driving drunk and they’ll do it?

Any ideas on how to prevent them from driving drunk? I knew a woman who had an interlock device on her car after a drunk driving conviction, and she just drove her husband’s car instead, or borrowed one from a buddy. And once her sentence was over, she was back to her own car. It doesn’t do a lot of good to have only one car modified, or for a limited period of time.

Why would breathalyzer interlocks have to be unhygienic? Just use those little packets of alcohol (heh) wipes. Most people only drive their own cars, anyways.

I hate the notion of doing this, but I sure don’t have any other great ideas of how to keep drunks out of drivers’ seats.

6

All of the sudden it is "illegal to drink and drive. HABEUS CORPUS there cannot be a crime without an injured party. If you are injured by a drunk driver, you have absolutely every right to sue that person and own their wages until they pay the fair damages. totalitarian super laws are illegal, unconstitutional, and a violation of human rights. My freind got stopped on a dirt road 100 miles from anyone, and was forced to pay thousands of dollars and ripped of his right to travel. No one was injured, yet the mafia superfascists stole his life savings in court fines and attached a tracking device to his leg. no one was injured when he was travelling home that night, but he was extorted and forced to pay. The government, by administrating these laws, is saying that an automobile IS a weapon, and if someone drives, they have violent intent. if you know law language that is what it means.

7

Ah yes, the mafia superfascists.
I hate those jerks.

8

It’s not sudden at all. Campaigns against drunk driving have been going on for years, and it took a long time bfeore people’s attitudes changed.

That’s not what habeas corpus means. And you’re wrong. You can most certainly be charged with a crime for activities that endanger other people.

I thought you said there could be a crime if there was an injured party. Now you’re saying it’s only a civil matter?

What’s a totalitarian super law?

Nope. But it’s true that you can do a lot of damage with a ton or two of steel moving at 60 miles an hour. Disregarding that is negligent.

9

They’re laws instituted by Mafia Superfascists.

10

Word. They’re worse than Illinois nazis.

11

It’s easier and cheaper to just fuck over the criminals who drive drunk than to try to impose some kind of expensive, untested, possibly error-prone technology on all of us.

Sorry, martin. I’d rather see you horsewhipped in the public square and tossed in the dungeon for your crimes than have to pay to prove I’m not also guilty of the same crime each time I drive.

And for the record, on the very rare occasions I drink alcohol at events from which I’ll be driving home, I drink very lightly and stop drinking hours before the event ends, to give me full chance to metabolize. If I’d been driver-tested constantly over the last 20 years, I doubt I’d ever have registered higher than a 0.01, if that.

12

I don’t believe there’s any reasonable way to implement an effective device to test for alcohol before the car will start, because:

People can get someone else to blow into it (or whatever it needs to do to perform its test - if it does it via skin contact, they’ll just poke it with something that isn’t a finger, etc.

What if it malfunctions (false positive) and I can’t drive an injured person to hospital, or I just can’t get in to work?

Barring some kind of highly elaborate Star-Trek-like scanning and computing technology, there are quite sound reasons why nobody has invented the device you’re wishing for.

13

I expect we’ll have self-driving cars before drunk-testing cars.

14

And that would be the only way I’d even consider voting for legislation that favors installing alcohol detection devices in personal transportation. If the case is simply that the manual override is disabled when drunk but you still go home, that’s one thing. It is another to place the functionality of the vehicle into the little electronic hands of one component that could error.

15

Who will test the cars? We can’t have drunken cars driving themselves around.

16

Yeah, fulla antifreeze and stuff…

17

I believe most people are rational, and respond to deterrents. I’m sure many people respond more to the deterrent effect of a shoplifting conviction then to the moral guilt that stealing is wrong.

I think we should ramp up the penalties for drunk driving, something like - the first conviction is automatic loss of license for six months, the second gets you a year in jail. Really make it hurt when you do it, and do away with the numerous pleas deals that take the DD charge down to reckless driving or some such.

It would take about 10 years or so of the new penalties to take effect as the older generation ages out, but the newer generation would understand the penalties and be afraid of jail.

18

I thnk they’re plenty high enough already. What I don’t get is why we have a binary line- you’re either over the limit or you’re not. Why can’t we have, like, four tiers? You were buzzed, you were drunk, you were smashed…or you were sober. Then we’d have penalties that vary according to the tier- fines, suspensions, then jail time.

If we do it for murder, rape, and robbery, why can’t we have “DUI in the second degree”?

19

I’m not willing to pay the cost of installing and maintaining such a device on my vehicle. I’d rather see something like mandatory jail weekends, for a year, for convicted DUI cases.

20

Intraveinous ethanol is actually the cure for antifreeze poisoning.
So next time you get stopped on a DUI, chug some antifreeze and tell the cop you’ve been self-medicating.