I don't know about counter productive. I mean it made many otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals... and just because it proved ineffective doesn't mean the intention was bad. the methods used to carry out the intention were perhaps ineffective and counter productive. but the intention was good, wasn't it? or do you not care about all those battered women who are beaten by their drunk husbands and boyfriends every day? you think that just because we get those drunks off the road that we've gone far enough? we must go further! we must prevent drunkenness altogether, and if we can't, we need to lock them all up! we must ensure that the penalties for drunkenness are so severe, and we stigmatize drunkenness to such an extent that it changes people's behavior. hey, it worked for MADD.
We don't make laws on intentions and sunshines and facelicks from puppies. Prohibition didn't work because it did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do - curb drinking. Harsher drunk driving penalties reduced drunk driving incidents. Do you understand the difference? This would be less of a red herring if prohibition reduced domestic abuse. This might shock you, but domestic abuse happens in societies that ban, or otherwise frown upon, drinking. Get off BigSoccer and get to work then. I don't get why you're all talk and no action.
of course we make laws based on intentions. all laws have intentions. they are intended to curb some behaviors and encourage other behaviors. poorly written laws are unsuccessful in accomplishing their intent, but that doesn't mean the intent is bad. it's the method that must be changed. it's very simple. alcohol causes violence in society. so what do we do about it? we can ban alcohol altogether; we can monitor and restrict the use of alcohol very severely, or we can make the penalties for excessive (however we decide to define it) use so severe, that it changes people's behavior - or some combination of all three. and while domestic abuse happens in societies that ban drinking, clearly alcohol contributes heavily to domestic abuse. so while we can't fix all the causes of domestic abuse, we can fix some. isn't that the argument you used with drinking and driving? clearly you alcohol isn't the only thing that contributes to accidents, but it is a major one. so it's not hypocritical to just focus on alcohol and ignore the other causes. well, same holds true here. as for getting off BigSoccer, does getting off on BigSoccer count? because I don't plan on getting off BigSoccer any time soon, though I will admit, sometimes I do get off on BigSoccer.
Besides, so what if my argument is a red herring? I've cut down the mightiest tree in the forest before with a herring!
Of course. And banning alcohol as a means to curbing alcohol use failed utterly horribly. Yet it's not the primary cause, nor is it a particularly influential one. Abuse happens because of abusive relationships. Alcohol is merely the lubricant that enables the abuse. Plus, drinking and driving is unquestionably dangerous, but drinking and hanging out with the wife is not inherently abusive. Put simply, alcohol makes otherwise good drivers bad, but alcohol makes bad husbands worse - it doesn't remove the root cause of the behavior. That's not a trivial difference, and that's why this is a red herring.
I contend that public education has done more to curb "drunk" driving than any draconian penalties have. But those are easy to enact to look "tough on crime" and as a politician, you'll likely even get paid to do so by those dirtbags called MADD and the lobbyist folks who make a buttload of money from the charges and convictions, etc. win-win - except for the public at large. I take it you agree with all laws and obey them strictly since "we as a society have decided" to enact them. I wish the anti-abortion people would think like that. We as a society have decided that simple basic medical procedure is legal and none of anyone's business. We as a society do think driving drunk is bad, that's why we gave cops the ability to recognize driving patterns as drunk and pull over a motorist for that reason, even gave them a set of tests to determine actual impairedness to some extent (or at least to trick them into admitting drinking). But then a very small threatening minority came in and demanded that we apply a random number to what that meant instead so actions themselves were irrelevant. Under fear of looking soft on crime or not caring about some poster child who got hit by a drunk driver, we assigned a number. Yay we as a society. Well, that wasn't good enough either, the number had to be lowered. and lowered again. Then penalties had to be stiffened, lives had to be destroyed. Apparently "we" got our foot in the door and can't seem to be happy about what it gets us - I have a feeling "we" (by which I mean "they") won't be happy until that number is 0.000. It's fine if you think that should be true, but don't lie and say it's society's wish that no one drinks anymore. As has been pointed out, that is not remotely true.
MADD are the same meddlesome moralistic blowhards that shoved Prohibition down people's throats a century ago.
Not what I meant. I meant that there's very little controversy or ambiguity about tough penalties for drunk driving in general, even if we argue about exactly how sever the punishments should be. I don't see any evidence that this is true. Strawman defeated! Huzzah! Also, I do understand the criticism against MADD as an organization. It's bloated and mismanaged. But the complaint was about MADD's basic mission and the anti-drinking & driving advocacy in general, and that's what I'm defending here.
clearly the penalties weren't stiff enough. maybe if they put you on probation for a couple of years, and 30 days in jail for having a drink, it would do the trick. Yet it's not the primary cause, nor is it a particularly influential one. so are those who drink and drive essentially good people who make bad decisions once they've had a few, and their judgement is clouded (you know, they didn't intend to get drunk, just stopped to have a couple of happy hour beers with some buddies after work), or are they essentially evil people who are made worse by drinking and need to be locked up and their lives destroyed?
I think the people in MADD are disgusting egotistical holier-than-thou creeps of the highest order. Worse than if the Occupy protesters were merged with the Tea Party protesters But that's based on the few I have met or heard on TV/Radio/etc. There might be one decent one out there somewhere, who knows, never seen them.
if you had an organization, that was as successful as MADD at preventing every human behavior that put other people in danger, you would be living in a damned totalitarian state with little in the way of personal freedoms. that's not a world I want to live in. [hey, you blew your cigarette smoke in the face of that person in a public place, off to jail you go! that'll learn ya!] -- just one ridiculous example.
[sir, I pulled you over because you were driving 15 mph over the speed limit. haven't you heard that speed kills? do you know how many people die every day in accidents caused by speeding? what, this is your first speeding ticket? no matter, off to jail you go! that'll learn ya!] [ma'am, do you know why I pulled you over? I noticed you were talking on the phone while driving. what? you're a member of MADD? well, no matter, distracted driving actually is more dangerous than drunk driving. off to jail with you! that'll learn ya!] I could go on and on. yeah, the scenarios seem ridiculous. yet that's exactly what happens if you get pulled over for drinking and driving. something less dangerous than texting and driving.
can you imagine the outrage if any of the above scenarios actually played out? yet these activities are just as dangerous and pose just as much of a threat to other drivers as drinking and driving? why is it okay to punish one with a jail sentence, yet we recoil in horror at the very thought of the other scenarios playing out, and being hauled off to jail for a first time speeding offense, or a first time talking on the phone offense. no hypocrisy there?
I can already hear the excuses. "but drunks deliberately set out to break the law!" as if the person who decides to make a phone call while driving doesn't make a conscious decision to do so, knowing its illegal and it puts other people at risk. Not only that, but this person is answering the phone in their right mind, whereas it can be reasonably argued that the person who drove while drink was not in his right mind when he decided to do so. His judgement was clouded by alcohol. He didn't set out to get drunk. He was just going to have a couple if drinks. But after the first one, his judgement became clouded. But because of the social stigma, there is no mercy for him. No understanding. No leniency.
Lucky for you, this imaginary thing that you just made up is imaginary and doesn't exist. It's a good thing the real world acts like the real world, right? I really don't get what you're trying to achieve with your strawmen and red herrings.
Tough penalties are what allow education to work. Look around various aspects of your society and you quickly realise how effective the cost/benefit equation is to ensure blanket compliance. Communicate the rules and use the carrot and the stick. This is what ensures that most people do not head out in the morning to rob the supermarket at gun point. On the other hand penalties often fail in close proximity to the decision point. Assaults, crimes of passion, people killed over 2 dollars. At the point you walk out of the bar, having unexpectedly got drunk and wonder whether you should risk driving home, the risk of detection has far more influence than the severity of penalty. If you do not believe you will be caught, the brain discounts the downside very swiftly. The larger war against drunk driving was won long ago - what is left is creating the fear in that moment. Hence the PR efforts. NZ employs a similar psychology with visible drug and food dogs at the airport. The dogs are relatively ineffective compared to other methods - but they worry the crap out of potential offenders, because they look like they catch people.
I said nothing about whether people were good or bad. Talking about good and evil is for stupid people - I'm talking strictly about the effect of alcohol on behavior, i.e. a good driver who drinks becomes a bad driver, whereas a non-abusive spouse doesn't become abusive after a drink.
You are tilting at windmills. Policy people understand how risk works - but public buy in is required. That is why policies are tightened gradually. If you go straight to 3 years jail for texting then people like you will start getting illogical about it.
All these elaborate efforts to convince us that drinking and driving 'is not that bad'. Not a real crime.
I don't know any of the data on it - other than driving well over 100k is a waste of fuel. My soul beef is with people speeding in pedestrian zones. IIRC drivers in Germany and the UK are much safer than in NZ.
Presumably then you believe an airline pilot or bus driver should not face stiff penalties for having a few drinks before work? After all - how is it different to criminalizing a dad driving his family home after a dinner?
And I'm guessing better (or, existent) urban planning makes the roads safer as well, and reduces need/incentives for driving.
I've always thought the figure we have over here, (which I'm guessing is about the same as yours based on the data in the other thread), which allows you to drink a couple of pints, (of beer at about 3.5% strength for me), over a couple of hours was reasonable. If you have MORE than that your judgement starts to go and you're inclined to have another one and, once you have that, you want more again. Up to a couple of pints over a couple of hours you've still got the common sense to say, 'That's enough'. Makes sense to me.
Just going back to the point of these supposedly 'extreme' penalties for a minute, I've been doing some checking and looking for sentences for drivers who caused death because they were distracted and they seem to vary from between 2 and 5 years which is roughly about the same as drunks who cause death on the road. It's classed as reckless driving. There's also this from a few years back... http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/dec/20/ukcrime.politics Motorists who use mobile phones or smoke while at the wheel could face up to two years in jail under new guidelines to be published today. Drivers in England and Wales who cause death on the roads could also be jailed for life under new measures drafted by the Crown Prosecution Service. The new guidance means the worst cases of death by dangerous driving could be prosecuted as manslaughter, which carries a maximum life sentence. I think, as several people have said, that these laws WILL be tightened up as we go along.
In the UK, the range of sentences for driving whilst impaired through drink or drugs goes from a small fine and a 12-month ban, to six months custody for serious offences. Compare that with dangerous driving, which ranges from a low level community order plus 12 month ban, to two years in custody. I don't think people who drink and drive are treated unfairly at all. And I do think that people should be charged with manslaughter if they kill someone at the wheel due to being impaired through drink (and if they are driving whilst disqualified, too). Andy, the sentencing guidelines for causing death by driving can be found here: http://sentencingcouncil.judiciary.gov.uk/docs/web_causing_death_by_driving_definitive_guideline.pdf