A convicted DUI driver passed out while behind the wheel, and blames the interlock device for his accident.
Others from around the country relate similar complaints.
Question: Does the positive effect on public safety through the installation of these devices outweigh the risk created by diverted attention from proper driving?
I’m still trying to decide.
To the Mods-I put this in the Pit, anticipating strong opinions and possible language. Relocate if you feel otherwise.
I don’t see much of a point in using them while driving. Before starting the car? Yes, a wonderful thing. But it is a severe distraction while driving, and what does it do if you fail? Shut the engine off while you’re going 75 mph down the highway?
Huh?
Simple, you get in the car and blow into the doodad. If you’re sober enough the car starts, if you’re not, it don’t start.
This Year’s Model, the reason that periodic testing is required and not just when the car is to be started is to prevent drunk people from having a sober buddy blow for the test and get the car started and then drive off. As for the periodic testing being a distraction, as stated in the article, people always have the option of pulling over. If they do fail the test, they have a window of opportunity to get out of traffic and stop the car before the ignition locks, the engine does not shut down instantaneously.
You didn’t read the linked article, did you?
Whoops, thanks Jada I missed that.
Hmmmmm the server just warped out on me, neat.
Anyway, no <hanging head in shame> I didn’t RTFA.
Carry on.
Well, that’s what I was wondering. Thanks. I no longer object to testing while driving.
[Devil’s advocate] On a two lane country road with which the operator is not familiar, perhaps it is raining, and nighttime visibility prevails, I’d suspect that pulling off the road (where there is no shoulder) creates a signifigant hazard to the original operator and other motorists. [/Devil]
dances–They don’t necessarily state all the individual ways this works in all jurisdictions, but there’s a basic understanding that I’ve seen pretty much every where I go that drivers are responsible not to do stupidly dangerous stuff while they’re behind the wheel.
Getting a bunch of tickets is supposed to get the message across that they’re blowing it. Having the device installed in their car is supposed to get the message across that they’re really blowing it. This device makes it more difficult for them to control their car. If they can’t drive it in the dark, or in the rain, or on a narrow road, I’m okay with that.
I wear glasses. I’m not supposed to drive without them. If my glasses get so dirty for some bizarre reason (soda explosion, for example) that I can’t see clearly, I have the option of taking them off and trying to get them clean while still driving, or pulling over before trying to clean them.
Being a sober driver, this is not a hard decision for me to make.
I know there’s going to be a huge legal fracas around this, but the program seems like an incontrovertable success. If you’re enough of a menace that you actually have one of these devices court ordered onto your vehicle, then perhaps the testees should stop complaining, and simply pull over and park to do the test. After all, the state didn’t put you there, you driving drunk put yourself there.
Now, as far as the 79 year old lady with shortness of breath, I gotta wonder how sane it is that she’s driving in the first place, much less on a DUI.
As I understood the article, this device isn’t being inflicted on everyone; just those with a history of drunk driving. Speaking as a person who a) has had a DUI (to my deep and lasting shame) and b) believes that DUI should be treated as attempted murder unless it can be demonstrated that the situation was literally life and death, I don’t think this is too much of an imposition.
DUI is, to my mind, one of the few crimes for which harsh deterrents would actually work, because it almost never arises that someone needs to drink and drive, and because so many people who are not otherwise habitual criminals engage in it. If you knew, for example, that if you were caught, you would get six months in jail, no appeals, no ifs ands or buts about it (except for the very rare life-and-death situation, which could be proven), I think you would think VERY seriously about driving while drunk, or putting yourself into a situation where you’d be inclined to do so.
I have no problems with seriously inconveniencing or even minorly endangering an habitual DUI. After all, s/he has endangered the rest of us a great deal more!
Tried to post this before, but the server went on its’ union-mandated break…
This is an asinine condition, if that is how it was worded. It is unfortunate that it took an injury and a lawsuit for the state to to see that flaw. Pull off the road, put the car in park, blow in the tube, catch your breath, continue on. If the driver has to do this every hour while driving, perhaps the system can be rigged to prevent the car from being taken out of park in the case of a positive read.
More unintended consequences as a result of bumbling Politburo planning. I say it is time to eliminate so-called public property, and let people either enjoy or suffer the consequences of their own decisions.
Are you saying that laws against drunk driving are misguided? Are you suggesting that in Libertopia there would be no laws against drunk driving?
Huh? This sounds exactly like a case of the person who commits the crime suffering the consequences of their decision. If you drive drunk, you can’t drive without proving you’re sober. What does public/private property have to do with it?
I have some safety concerns with the way the things currently work. In a suburban or rural area having to pull over to operate the thing might be only a minor hassle, but in heavier traffic pulling over immediately isn’t always an option. The mechanism for the ignition lock is a little tricky to use to make sure people don’t try to cheat it. The user first has to sharply inhale, then exhale somewhat forcefully for several seconds, all into a little straw near the steering wheel. Having to take your eyes off the road, fiddle with something down by the steering wheel, and do a little breath trick on a moment’s notice to keep your car in operation could potentially endanger the driver and those around him. I understand that at least one person has been killed attempting to use the device in heavy traffic.
The benefits probably outwiegh the risks, but that’s only a consideration if the risks cannot be eliminated. Maybe a grace period might lessen the risk, say, the vehicle will shut off within a few minutes if the driver doesn’t blow.
Wow. Just…wow. (And I usually agree with you…ssh, don’t tell.)
But WTF? Are you seriously suggesting that some drunk behind the wheel of a car is not a danger to my child and me when we’re using the same road? In rush hour traffic, were I have literally no shoulder, no room to evade (and furthermore shouldn’t have to?)
Sorry, but our roads are public property. If Joe Lush wants to get wasted and drive around his own property where it’s clearly marked that other cars are not allowed to drive, then I totally agree with you. Let him kill himself. But if he’s on MY roads - nuh-uh, sorry!
Folks, let me restate my perspective. I do not condone or support operating under the influence. Whether or not repeat offendors should retain operating privileges or not isn’t germane to my OP.
I’m questioning whether or not the corrective measure outweighs it’s own intrinsic risk.
I don’t know how these devices function, e.g. how frequently they require a clean sample, and how long after a sample is not supplied/failed sample is supplied, that they go into lockout mode, and the result of same.
Pulling a car off the road isn’t always as easy as it sounds, and this is one of the hypothetical situations in my head. Where I live, ‘off the road’ is at most 2 feet, unless you want to be towed out. As such, I can’t clear a lane, and by partially blocking a lane, I impose a hazard on drivers from either direction.
Could the system cut off ignition while in the middle of a left turn across traffic? Don’t know.
Hopefully someone with knowledge of the device perameters will post.
I found this from an Idaho website
And, here is the site of a company that makes them. It says the circumvention alarm simply sounds the horn.
I can’t find anything that says how long you have to take the test once you’re asked to. I’m a lot more at ease with the idea of a rolling retest than I was, but I think it wouldn’t hurt to make it easier to take.