It’s rather that passengers are not forbidden to drink. They aren’t especially allowed to, but then, passengers are only forbidden from disturbing the driver. So a sober passenger who shouts at the driver or puts his hands over the drivers eyes because he is horsing around will get into trouble under general rule, but a drunk passenger quietly drinking beer is in no trouble.
I don’t see why the law should care about passengers. We want one sober driver to transport his 3 or 4 drunken buddies home, so as long as driver is clean, the passengers can do what they like. They can also use the phone, eat, smoke, sleep - all of which is too distracting for the driver.
These studies have been done in simulators, and texting as well as talking on the phone (even with handless sets) is very distracting. Talking to a passenger is slightly distracting (psychologists say that a passenger will react to the traffic flow, while the driver will put priority over an unseen person on the phone).
Music is slightly distracting, depending on how much attention the driver pays to it. But it can also help with getting dulled by straight roads, so it depends a lot.
Loudness itself is less of a problem, since elderly and deaf people can drive, too, they just pay more attention.
Every time this question comes up, someone says that it’s too low, because it penalizes light drinkers who have only had 4 or 5 drinks in the past hour, and they personally can drink that much without being impaired. There are two problems with this: First of all, 4 or 5 drinks is not, by any reasonable standard, light drinking. Light drinking is more like that much per week. Second, while it may be true that there are a handful of people who can drink that much and still drive safely, they’re very, very rare… But almost everyone who drinks that much thinks they’re one of those rare few.
As for the argument that the typical drinker at .08 is no more impaired than someone texting while driving, or subject to other distractions, well, that may be so. But that doesn’t mean that the .08 drinking laws are too strict; it means that we’re not strict enough against other driving distractions.
wow, they really can’t control themselves and their imbibing that they need to have the freedom to drink in a passenger car? I think I’m ok with abridging this freedom
because it’s probable that the driver is going to want to partake, and balancing that probability against the hardship of not being able to booze in a car isn’t such a hard test to me.
:rolleyes: Have you ever heard the term “designated driver”? Believe it or not, some people can be in the vicinity of alcohol, attend parties and bars, and not partake. I’m not one of these people, but I know them, and they drive me around a lot.
I mean that I don’t know the rules in all European countries. Thus the modifier (“many”).
Really, don’t ask me. I live on the east bank of the pond, just like you apparently do. You gotta ask some Americans about that, but when I lived in the US some years ago, my American colleagues were pretty shocked that our police could pull you over for a breathalyzer test just as a matter of routine.
I live in a country with a 0.02% BAC limit for per se DUI plus the “risk” of being pulled over for no apparent reason, whereby a polite police officer asks me nicely if I would blow in his instrument (uh, that didn’t come (oops!) out exactly as I intended…). I’m fine with that, maybe because I’ve had the rather dubious pleasure of administering first aid to a guy who drove drunk and subsequently died from it :dubious:
Just a few random observations; it seems like part of the difference of opinion here is based on how much alcohol an individual and their friends typically consume. For example, in my world, 4-5 drinks in a night is light drinking. That does not seem to be the case for some of the folks who favor very strict per se DUI standards. In my experience there also is a generational component. I have noted that people my age (44) or older tend to be more tolerant of mild drinking and driving than the younger folks that have been brainwashed, I mean educated, about the evils of alcohol. I expect any negative affect that alcohol has had on your life may also play into it.
I said it was too low because you have no business driving if you’ve been drinking.
My personal rule is 1 1/2 hour wait if I’ve had, for instance, one beer with lunch.
The next day if I’ve had more than one.
There have been a few times in the last 15ish years when I’ve fudged a bit on this, but not lot. These very few lapses were only when I really, really had to be someplace. Generally I just forgot I had something to do, had a couple with lunch and then realized the problem.
After reading the entry above mine I guess I should add that on the whole I drink a fair amount. There’s rarely a day I don’t have something to drink.
Second edit: After re-rereading my entry I need to change line one to - I said it was too high. . . .
Been drinking you know.
I think .1% is fine. I also know that the times I’ve driven tipsy I was less impaired than the time I and my longish-distance boyfriend broke up on my birthday and I had to drive 3 hours home through a fog of tears.
I’ve drank in cars when someone else was driving. It wouldn’t be a big deal not to do it, but it’s not a big deal to do it either.
And that’s not even all there is to open container laws, at least here in WA. It’s illegal to have a container that has ever been opened (unless it’s in the trunk), even if no one in the car is drinking. There have been times I was taking an opened bottle of alcohol to a friend’s house, hadn’t been drinking, and wasn’t going to start until after I got to the friend’s. Still illegal. (I’m not worried about it because it wasn’t in plain view and nobody was going to be searching my car, but it’s still a silly law.)
That’s fine, my question was directed more to Leaffan, who objected to lowering the BAC. The point is that people find a way to enjoy themselves just fine, with alcohol at dinner, even with a BAC limit of zero.
I didn’t want to bring up specific examples because I thought I might get piled on, but a car full of teens or a car with crying/arguing/yelling children can be just as dangerous as any BAC, but you’d never ever say it was bad for a parent to drive around with their children. There are laws now in some places for new drivers saying how many people can be in the car with them/what age they can be though.
Personally, I know passengers talking affect me more than a drink. But I do try to avoid either scenario.
That seems really … strange. On the one hand, in the US, cops have incredibly wide latitude, like seizing your property under the anti-drug laws. On the other hand, laws are made so narrow as to be idiotic.
Children are not automatically noisy and distracting, so limiting how many / how old people in the car can be is dumb. Instead, drivers should be educated and aware enough to know that they are endangering others and should stop. For those who aren’t aware of this, the cops stop them and apply the general traffic law* to them.
Of course German families drive with their cars full of children, too. But the parents issue the rule of “If you don’t stop making noise, I will stop the car” and follow through, just like parents follow other areas of discipline and rules. (My father also did not start the car before everybody was belted in. No discussion about it, that was the rule, and it made sense).
The first paragraph of the German StVO- Traffic law is (paraphrased): Each participant in traffic (=pedestrians, bikers, cars, inliners…) is responsible to always act in a manner that neither endangers nor hinders anybody else.
From this prinicple the other rules are derived and also practical applied, so e.g. there are general speed laws, but if its foggy or snowing, you have to drive slower than posted to not endanger others.
Likewise, there’s a specific rule about alcohol, and a general rule about not driving impaired that includes medications and non-alcohol drugs (though they are harder to test for).
So if you are upset enough to cry, or have a cold with fever and headache, you don’t belong behind the wheel of a car! If you are unable to act as responsible adult, then the cops will stop and ticket you, so threat of punishment will stop you, if insight is not enough.
What does my answer to this question have to do with anything? Does whether or not open container laws are silly depend on whether or not MeanOldLady has ever drank in a vehicle while someone else was driving? It really shouldn’t. If you’re dying to know about my personal habits, my answer is: I own three flasks. Well, three *traditional *flasks.
