Southerner? Where in where in my post does it say “South?” It says “red-neck,” a being that appears in the rural Midwest with alarming frequency. I have taken way too many calls from the county jail at 3:00 AM from supposedly responsible people who, despite the slurred speech and strange pauses, insist that they were perfectly OK. The in-bar-breathalyzer will inevitably turn into a license to have just one more and then try to beat it home before the booze kicks in.
In terms of drinking and driving at all, with a 0.080 grams of alcohol per 210 liters of breath BA level, it amounts to criminalizing driving after drinking any significant amount.
I think it would be too difficult to figure out each person’s acceptable BAL. What would you do, slowly increase their BAL while driving until they begin to shows signs of impairment? We’re drinking during driving tests now? And what would the level for someone like me be? I never drink, and I certainly won’t drink just to take my driving test. But there would have to be some limit specified for me just in case I ever do start drinking.
I actually kind of like the breathalyzer in the bar idea, but perhaps there could be a rule that you can’t drink any more after using it?
In his book Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do, the late lamented Peter McWilliams suggested the following alternative:
Install a gizmo in the car that displays 6 random decimal digits. The prosrective driver would have to enter all 6 of them correctly on a numeric keypad, with a time limit of only a few seconds between hitting the first key and hitting the 6th key. Until the would-be driver enters all 6 correctly within the time limit, the car will not start. If the user enters 3 incorrect sequences in a row, the ignition locks out for at least an hour before the poor soul can try again.
Of course, you’d have to make it a crime to drive a car without such a device, or with a device that has been tampered with.