so if this is really about drinking and driving, and isn't about those who benefit from the inordinately harsh penalties associated with drinking and driving, why not have all cars come pre-installed with interlocks? kind of like having to have a license in order to drive, you would need to have an interlock in order to exercise the privilege of driving. you could set the interlock at .04, and if you blow over that, you don't drive. the civil libertarian crowd would be upset, but you know what, driving isn't a right. merely a privilege. so if you want to enjoy the privilege, you have to submit to a breathalyzer before you drive. it would seem to me that if you're really concerned with drinking and driving, and not about benefitting from punishing DUI offenders, this would be a good option.
The savage penalties for manslaughter etc are not that significant in terms of changing behaviors in any event. The biggest deterrent is fear of detection. Which has gone through the roof. This is the same for any 'soft' crime. The second, and tying in to the above, is education of young drivers which has changed the social acceptability of drunk driving. In many countries this has led to changed drinking habits. In particular the decline of suburban bars.
Completely. If we were going to be logical we would do that, and build cars that could not go faster than 110 kph rather than 250-300kph. But the public is too stupid and buys cars with wasted engine capacity
In college, I don't remember ever going out to the bars or a party without a designated driver. And I really mean never (well, either that or finding a safe parking spot so we could cab home). I can tell you why designating a driver has become a common practice, but I don't want to keep stating the obvious.
yes, but can you not accomplish that with lesser penalties? are the penalties so severe because you want to prevent drinking and driving, or because of the cottage industry built up around punishing DUI offenders more severely? and what about the continued effort to keep lower the legal limits? I mean how low is low enough?
The only logical limit would in fact be null. But sensible policy requires public buy in. So instead we have seen a gradual lowering. Personally I think penalties are appropriate. They should be in the manslaughter/wilful running of the risk neighbourhood. Loss of license is impt because it is extremely annoying. This has had a major impact in speeding as well (3 strikes). I know from Belgian Guy they have some interesting speeding data in Belgium. If you escalate penalties for speeding to eye watering levels - you shift the curve. The reason we haven't done that in NZ is political. In the end Public stupidity and arrogance is the number one cause of accidents. Deaths that are unacceptable in aero or public order happen daily on the roads. On the other hand we have made great strides in terms of getting old cars off the road.
So if someone's had an accident because they're distracted or driving aggressively what are we going to do, ASK them if they habitually do it? And we're just gonna trust the, are we? Point being that unless we can prove they do, (unlikely!), then we have to assume they don't so we can't say they set out to break the law, i.e. the OPPOSITE of drunk drivers. Yeah, it seems so obvious when you say it... It's like that statistic about accidents and fatalities among elderly drivers which, IIRC, indicated that elderly drivers, (in their 80's, say), had proportionally more accidents than people 30 years younger BUT that, proportionally, they caused fewer fatalities... mainly because they're normally only doing 28mph when they hit something. Why do you persist with this 'so severe' point? HOW severe? They don't sound particularly severe to me. It's mainly a matter of not being allowed to drive for a while. Bearing in mind we're talking about people who SET OUT to break the law, (for reasons I've already given), that seems the very LEAST you could do to get them to modify their behaviour.
Cut it out with the personal insult, guys. You can make the point without them. It's a pain to have to edit your posts. Might as well delete the whole post.
I said this in that other threadjacked thread, but not only do they set out to break the law, they actually go to the trouble of pumping incriminating evidence into their bloodstream for easy detection! So they (1) Intentionally break the law (2) Willingly violate now-established social mores, and (3) Actively build an easy case for prosecution. That's a combination of stupidity, self-destructive and anti-social behavior that shouldn't draw much sympathy from anyone.
Drinking and Driving Great idea! Feel free to start your own group to lobby for this! Of course, there's the risk that someone might question your motives and call you hypocritical. just saying ... Now, how to prevent drunks from having their children blow into the tube ... Personally, I await the Googlemobile: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/science/10google.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss "Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated ... Scientists and engineers have been designing autonomous vehicles since the mid-1960s ... There is even the farther-off prospect of cars that do not need anyone behind the wheel. That would allow the cars to be summoned electronically, so that people could share them. Fewer cars would then be needed, reducing the need for parking spaces, which consume valuable land." http://www.buckscountyduilaw.com/20...nswer-for-duis-or-too-good-to-be-true-1.shtml
When you get busted here for being "legally drunK" (drunk, but not over the limits), you usually get your license suspended for 24 hours and you have to pay a fine in addition to that. When it comes to texting, it usually handled under to cocnept of "driving without due care and attention" and that can represent a broad range of things that distract a driver from the road. When you have ftal drunk driving accidents, the sentences around here are usually no more than a couple of years (even for multiple fatalities) so teh idea of rehabilitation is really lost. You need to be a risk-taking prosecutor around these parts to make it a harsher sentence.
Precisely. Its a war that has already been won as far as possible. The Minerva Fallacy is more usually encountered with speeding. Because so many drivers lack the mental capacity to understand the risks of their own behaviour, they instead project ulterior motives on to those that might punish that behaviour. I have this discussion about once per week with drivers who insist on driving at 20-50kph on our pedestrian square/playground (Limit 5kph). The response is always either that they were not driving that fast (i.e. I am lying) or they saw that there were no kids about (i.e. the rules are too inconvenient). When people cannot even manage to execute the most basic tasks correctly then they need to be routinely beaten with sticks to produce the desired behaviours.
We are getting OT here, hope that's okay: @Jitty: What's your opinion on the speed limit policy in Germany, then? You seem to be pretty critical to speeding in general.
I honestly don't get the whole "set out to break the law argument." did they not consciously make a decision to engage in behavior that put other drivers at risk? when you drive aggressively, or decide to drive while drowsy, do you not make a conscious decision to do that? what difference does it make if they set out to do it? I'm sure that would be a wonderful excuse to a victim of a texting while driving accident. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't set out to do it. it's just that I had this really important text message to send! and what about drowsy drivers? don't they actually "set out" to put other drivers in danger? so we're back to where we started - DUI offenders are punished more severely because it's easy to prove that they broke the law. and as you say, they are "stupid enough" to put incriminating evidence in their body. well, it's kind of the nature of the crime. if they didn't put the incriminating evidence in their body, there would be no crime. last I checked, there were not masking agents for alcohol. so the bottom line is that DUI offenders are punished more severely because it's easy to prove their case. I suppose severity is in the eye of the beholder, but I'm talking about severity in terms of the existing penalties for other illegal driving behaviors that are as dangerous or more dangerous than drinking and driving. relative to those, I don't think you can argue that drinking and driving is punished way more severely. and as tomwilhelm said in the other thread, just a few days in jail can pretty effectively ruin a person's career/life. and why? they didn't kill anyone. they didn't injure anyone. they simply engaged in a behavior that put other people at risk. something that many people do ALL THE TIME - yet even if they are caught, even if they cause death or injury to others, they will not face anywhere near as severe a penalty as those who engage in this one particular behavior that puts other drivers at risk.
it's not a fallacy. it's a fact. drinking and driving is not as dangerous as distracted driving, yet is punished much more severely than distracted driving. drinking and driving is not as dangerous as distracted or drowsy driving, yet it is much more socially stigmatized (because of groups like MADD), than distracted, aggressive, or drowsy driving. these are facts.
the problem is that there is a social stigma associated with certain human behaviors, while others are accepted. if you want to make fair laws, you have to base the penalties on objective criteria, and take the social stigma and human emotion out of it. you could have a list of "human driving behaviors that endanger others on the road" and list them 1-10, or however many there are, without identifying the behavior itself. then next to each human behavior, identify some statistics associated with each - how many accidents per year, how many injuries, how many severe injuries, how many deaths, how dangerous the behavior is to others on the road, using objective testing, etc. then you make laws that penalize those human behaviors based on those criteria, rather than on how easy it is to prove that someone engaged in that behavior, or the level of "stupidity" implied by the behavior.
Because there's no ambiguity about drunk driving. If you're drunk, it's against the law to drive. Everybody understands this. On the other hand, there's no clear legal or social standards for level of exhaustion or distraction that makes driving dangerous. Many states don't have laws on the book against use of mobile devices while driving. Hence, people who drink and drive break the law knowingly and willingly. The people who haven't had enough sleep or stressed about the job or looking for a radio station do not break the law knowingly or willingly, if at all. That's not the only reason for severe punishments, but sure. Say you murder someone. If you do it on a public street, with a firearm that's registered to you in close range, and do a victory dance after the bullet is fired, you're going to serve a longer sentence than someone who's less stupid about it. Because before states passed tougher laws against drinking & driving, drunk driving incidents accounted for something like 2/3 of traffic fatalities. Throwing drunk drivers in jail and shaming them was what it took to change people's behavior. Now, I agree with you to an extent - people don't take the dangers of distracted driving seriously. But you're barking up the wrong tree. MADD and SADD folks were absolutely right to pour energy and resources into education and lobbying because of the dangers posed by drunk driving. So instead of whining and throwing accusations of hypocrisy at pople who did something noble and productive, why not do the same and work to change the laws and perceptions about distracted driving? I don't understand why you're throwing such a hissy fit over people who have made the roads undeniably safer.
maybe I'll start MNAFWYRWD (meddling ninnies against fiddling with your radio while driving). sure the name is a bit cumbersome, and I will have to order custom sized business card, but I think it might catch on. who knows how many thousands of lives I will save! that alone will be worth it.
It's amazing MADD has achieved what it has given that people actually do think of them as "meddling ninnies" (can't tell your whether your tongue is in or out of your cheek, but that's neither here nor there).
and yet you do not have to be drunk to be arrested for drunk driving, you just have to have a certain, very subjective, BAC
yeah, it was tongue in cheek. but many of the women who brought about prohibition almost a century ago also thought they were doing something good for society. after all, if many of the guys who drink and then drive endanger others on the road, it can be argued that many of the guys who drink at home are a danger to their spouses and their families. so rather than just punishing the guy for domestic violence, why not just take away the root cause - alcohol. you see, alcohol is bad, not just if you're driving. the consumption of alcohol endangers people in general, whether at home, if the person is drinking at home, or at a party if the person is drinking at a club or a bar or house party. wherever there is alcohol, whether the person is driving or not, the person drinking is going to pose a danger to those around him. the guy who gets drunk at home may beat his wife or kids, or possibly a neighbor. a guy drinking at a bar might get into a fight with other patrons of the establishment. we simply cannot allow this. anyone want to go back to prohibition? perhaps if not absolute prohibition, then some limited form of prohibition - like you can only buy so much alcohol at one time, and no more than so much per week/month. each liquor store would have to scan your driver license or other ID, which would keep track of how much alcohol you've bought over the last week or month. in a bar or restaurant, they could serve you no more than two drinks per hour, and only for a maximum of 2 hours to make sure you don't get trashed, and go home and beat your wife or kids. no doubt, just like MADD has saved the lives of thousands of people through their advocacy, this could save women and children from being battered, and it would save society millions of dollars from the abuse suffered by those women and children who are beaten by their drunken husbands. it isn't enough to punish people after the crime has been committed. everyone knows that once a person is drunk, they are not in the right frame of mind to make those kinds of judgements. no, the Government must PREVENT drunkenness! the cost to society from drunkenness is simply too high.
Prohibition proved ineffective and counterproductive. Harsher drunk driving laws proved effective and life-saving. Stupid comparison. Because that proved ineffective and counterproductive. Society isn't that stupid. And red herrings are tiresome.
Sure, but you don't have to be drunk to be under the influence. Anyway, the arbitrariness of the BAC limit is immaterial. We, as society, have adopted "Don't drive if you've had more than a drink or two. Don't order more than a glass of wine or beer if you're driving. Designate a driver if you're going to a bar." as best practice. The law is very easy to follow and if you're pulled over, there's a quantitative metric for legality.