Too many of the young have been schooled in government schools, so they are already warped.
Why is younger considered less corrupt here?
After reading the article, I’d agree with it. The basic premise is that driving with a certain blood-alcohol level should not be illegal, but instead impaired and incompentent driving should be illegal. Citations should only be given for the reckless or dangerous driving. Having a certain level of alcohol in one’s blood is then only supporting evidence that the officer’s claim of dangerous driving occurred and then can be used in a court if a trial occurs.
Not much would be different, other than the citation being specifically for what happened: the dangerous driving. Right now, as far as I understand, an officer can not pull you over unless they witness you doing something illegal, and they do not know if you are drunk before pulling you over, they only see your dangerous driving.
As applies to the use of a moving, 2000+ pound motor vehicle, yes.
I don’t know that they are being violated by sobriety checkpoints. These do not authorize officers to search your vehicle. However I’m not sure how the judgement call is made if a driver is suspected of being under the influence, so the gray area is probably in there somewhere. I have never minded stopping at a sobriety checkpoint. They work.
I used to deliver the NY Times on Sundays, requiring picking them up at 5:00am. I always enjoyed my ride down to the place to pick them up (in Farmingdale, NY), as the roads were virtually empty. Though I alway had the feeling that about half of the few cars that were on the road at that time were being driven by drunks. Years later I found out that, statistically, they were! You could see the sloppy and weird driving.
A couple of months back, a presumably (very) drunk guy in a pickup truck came barreling down my street, after turning the corner and taking out a double-layered brick mailbox, his fan was chewing into his radiator and making lots of noise. Amazingly he went 100 yards down the street and made it around all the parked cars. Then he took out the two mailboxes of the houses across the street from us, drove over several small trees in one yard and came to rest into a big one. Then he slammed it into reverse and tried to back out of the yard, but the truck was hooked on something. He ran off, with his engine still running and truck billowing anti-freeze smoke.
Later on, I talked with the neighbors whose yard was torn up. They said “It’s a good thing he stopped here.” Because one more house after theirs, and he’d be out on the main road where he would have driven even faster, and might have killed someone. Only later did I remember the girl I was talking to was almost killed by a drunk driver a few years ago when he left from the neighborhood bar and head-on’ed her car less than half a mile away. She gets it.
So the author of the article is asking that drunk drivers be allowed to crash, create millions of dollars of property damage and maim and kill people, and then be punished accordingly. Not on my roads, if I can help it. I care too much about my friends and family.
Should you drive a car after taking cold medicine with codeine? I think it says not to right on the package. You could be impaired, but at least it’s not illegal to use your judgement there. Alcohol is a “judgement eraser” so we determine ahead of time that alcohol and driving should not be mixed.
This is not realistic. The reckless or dangerous driving too often culminates in events that raise both homeowners, auto and medical insurance rates. And kills people. If with our current laws in place half of our highway deaths are alcohol related, how would decriminalizing it be an improvement?
Ultimately, impairment-level would be the measure of whether one is competent to drive. But even the thought of using that approach would make nearly everyone feel fine to drive after drinking. I once read that about 80% of licensed drivers consider themselves to be “above average” drivers. And the more you drink, the less you’re able to self-determine anything, let alone whether you’re good to drive. So until there is a better method to determine it, the measure of alcohol in your bood, which is proportional to your weight, is the best way we know.
It seems like some of you are looking to make it okay to drive home after a few drinks. Is that the idea?
People cannot control how well they drive while they are drunk, so why let people who have been drinking onto the road at all? It is easy enough to get someone to drive you home, or if you are doing a real kidney buster, stay over at whoevers place you are at.
I don’t know if you will think that this is relevant but sleep researchers have found that being sleep deprived has as much of an impact on your driving as drinking alcohol has.
OK, so let’s give citations for the reckless and dangerous driving. What’s not realistic?
It’s not about decrimilalizing driving while having alcohol in your system, it’s about only criminalizing dangerous driving. Yes, statistically, having a certain blood-alcohol level does make one more likely to be a dangerous driver, and therefore, this would be good evidence to prove such dangerous driving occured, in a court if tested, but not the sole reason to citate someone.
So what about that other 50%? That’s really beside the point here though.
The questioned you’ve kinda raised is if someone would be able to determine, before getting behind the wheel to drive a car, if they think they are capable of safely driving the car at that point. Whether they have any alcohol in their system or are undergoing any other impairment at that time. They are likely no better at determining whether they can drive when a law says no 0.08 alcohol content verses just saying no dangerous driving. The real question in this thread is, what law preserves YOUR rights? Which one will not lead to a slippery slope of laws that will hurt you and your rights?
Yeah, statistically, having a certain percentage alcohol content results in dangerous driving, but it’s not the end-all of determining whether you’re a safe driver. The laws should have specific driving incidences that say you’re driving dangerously, and that’s why one should be pulled over and cited. Going through a red light, swerving out of lane, etc. That’s what should be in the law to citate someone, not whether they have a certain blood-alcohol content.
The idea is to make sure the citizen’s rights are allowed. This means being able to be on the road safely, exercise freedom to consume whatever we want, and be able to do anything else for that matter. Yeah, we may choose to do something dangerous to ourselfs, but we should have the right to do so if that has no effect on other’s rights, which driving drunk does not verses driving dangerously.
Driving drunk (legally drunk to .08) = driving dangerously.
Go get yourself drunk to .08 and get behind the wheel of a car and show me that you can drive not dangerously.
There are people who can do that.
Because you only need that one instance of reckless/dangerous driving to kill someone.
This is just as much of a slippery slope argument as mine is. Does a citizen have a right to rob a bank if he needs to pay the rent? Does a citizen have the right to shoot randomly into a crowd of people?
The Social Contract theory says that you give up some minor rights to the government to allow them to protect your life, and the more important rights. Give up the “right” to go out driving drunk, and gain the protection of not getting killed by a drunk driver. I will go so far as to say that it is impossible for every single person to be granted every single “right”. I believe that it’s better for everyone to be 75% happy, as opposed to a select few being 100% happy, and the rest being 15% happy.
My first thought are that the author should be charged with being drunk in charge of a type writer. Maybe the alcohol affected driver, most times causes no actual danger. That is not the same as saying he is not driving dangerously, just that there may not have been any people around to be mown down. I have a right not to be hit by his car, a right not to be killed by him. And in the contest of my right to live and his right to endanger my life I am afraid that his rights must suffer. I would go further and give the police the right to stop and breathalyse someone without having any signs that he is driving erratically.
If he had not had a drink, the few moments to blow into the bag is not going to damage his lifestyle.
The ultimate comparison might be to ask would we allow someone, also with a few drinks down his neck, in a shopping mall, to wander around firing a gun at a target…as long as he doesn’t actually hit anyone? Similar situation, different weapon.
Nao
Saying it’s okay to drink and drive. Citations are stillgiven out for reckless and dangerous driving even if a person isn’t drunk.
In a measureable way. BAC is measurable. Having a BAC over a certain amount, currently set at .08 for most of the US, has been legally determined to be equal to dangerous driving.
Why isn’t it legal to drive around with an untethered truckload of oxygen and acetelene (sp?) tanks? If the guy drives carefully enough, nothing will go wrong. Same idea, but with a lot more evidence of failure every day.
Interesting phrasing. The problem with alcohol, not to mention the many other drugs out there, is that it makes people “feel fine.” The drunker a person is, the more likely they are to misjudge their capability to drive safely. You want the drunk person to decide whether he/she should drive?
If there’s a way for drivers to objectively determine if they’re too impaired to be on the roads, and a way of enforcing it (the bigger hurdle), I’m all for it. This would cover all forms of impairment, such as sleep deprivation, cold medicine, perscription meds, illegal drugs, extreme rage, chemical imbalance, etc. It also might work well to help old people determine when it’s time to stop driving.
Not everyone is capable of driving a car safely. You don’t want everyone of age to have a driver’s license, believe me. Working in a driving school this is one of the things you see. Some people pick up driving almost instantly, and need very little training. Others take a year or more before they’re competent enough to get through a (Nassau County, anyway) road test. Others simply don’t have either the physical skills or cognitive ability to be safe drivers. They do not belong behind the wheel, and their rights are not being violated.
My question is which rights are being eroded? Search and seizure is not at issue with sobriety checkpoints, unless officers determine there is some cause to search. I don’t know the details, and they may vary by state. Roads are built for transportation and there are lots of rules to follow to use them safely. Unlike firearm ownership, use of roads is not guaranteed by the Constitution. Instead you have to pass a test (for motor vehicles).
Without drifting too much from the subject, please remember that there are tons of people out there driving around on suspended and revoked licenses. I recently saw something on TV (Police videos) where a woman was caught and arrested after driving very fast and dangerous. It turns out she had been convicted of DUI eighteen times already. I’m not sure if she actually still had a license or not…
Correct, but the BAC can be measured relatively easily and alcohol is the big problem. The other 50%? That contains everything else. People falling asleep, making big fat mistakes, being distracted, blown tires, drugs that aren’t alcohol, etc.
Our laws have determined, based on overwhelming statistical evidence, that driving after drinking is more dangerous to others than it is to yourself. The person causing a collisiion is often in better shape to survive it because your car protects you best when you hit things going straight ahead. That’s usually the drunk guy.
So why not just do that, why do we need to add driving with a certain BAC to the list of citations? They weren’t pulled over for driving with a certain BAC, they were pulled over for dangerous driving. Give them a citation for the dangerous driving whatever the cause may be. Putting everyone else, whether they are influenced by alcohol or not into one category is a violation of their rights. Some people are not affected by alcohol at all, why are they doing anything illegal if they have alcohol in their system and are completely capable to drive a vehicle safely?
The issue at hand is not about drunk driving, but at your rights. How are YOU different from society? How can we take your specific rights away from you that you enjoy and make your actions illegal even if you cause no harm to others by exercising your differences? Just because 90% of clowns are child molesters shouldn’t make being a clown illegal, it’s the actions done that should be illegal. It’s the same issue at hand here. How can we criminalize your actions without you ever committing a real crime to begin with?
I’d say that driving drunk is irresponsible, and I’d like to think that most people know better. I don’t have a problem with barricades (we call them R.I.D.E. programs here), where police can catch a few drivers who are over the limit, and get them off the road. The driver usually loses his/her licence for one year. I don’t have a problem with that either. I strongly agree that driving is a priviledge, and should come with certain responsibilities. There’s really no reason to drive drunk. Take a cab, walk, get a ride, or spend the night.
In terms of civil liberties, well, it’s all great to have them, but not at the expense of public safety, and what should be public responsibility.
As Gilby said, an officer has no right to pull you over unless they’ve got probable cause. At a checkpoint you’re being pulled over WITHOUT probable cause.
Look at recent legislation. Suspected terrorists are being held captive without probable cause. Are you okay with that, too? This isn’t all that different if you really think about it.
Just as astronauts and pilots are trained to work while impaired (in the bulk of a flight/space suit, under rapidly varying atmospheric conditions), drivers can train themselves to operate while impaired, if even slightly. One can increase their “defensible space”, reduce their speed and still operate a vehicle safely under the influence.
One’s reaction time does not determine their ability to drive safely: distance = velocity * time. It’s a multi-variable equation.
While there might be some variation person to person, there’s no question that alcohol slows down reflexes (as does sleep deprivation and various other substances) and it’s simply irresponsible and stupid to drive in this state. It’s the same concept with other drugs; if you have it in your system you have to pay the legal consequences. I’m not going to say that the government is definitely right in setting the bar at .08, but there has to be a threshold that determines when it is no longer okay to drive. It is necessary to do this to set a standard and try to prevent as much damage as possible. We have to be able to make a few personal sacrifices in the name of promoting the general wellbeing of our society. There are also some questions raised of infringements upon the rights of individual states in this situation, but we are a united nation. There IS a central government and we have to trust them at least a little bit or it will just turn into utter chaos. I’m no proponant of the Bush administration, far from it, but I do respect the American government on the basis that is a good system of governing. I find this article to be ignorant and pedantic. While the author does raise some valid points concerning our freedoms as citizens, I think, for the most part, that they are all nullified by
the concept of giving up some freedoms in the name of general public safety. And I’m not saying that the Patriot act is a good idea or it is even constitutional, but with this drunk driving situation things are completely different and we need to treat them as such.
Why have rules about how to transport dangerous/hazardous materials? Why not just drive safely and prosecute drivers that don’t? Same answer.
Can you cite any evidence of this? You might have trouble finding a doctor that agrees with you on that. Though some people are better at “masking” the effects of alcohol in their systems, generally people suck at driving at .08 or higher.
You realize there are currently thousands of people driving around drunk right now (middle of the afternoon)? Does this bother you? Ever feel uncomfortable driving home after a New Year’s Eve party because you know you’re surrounded by an exceptionally high percentage of impaired drivers? Based on what you’re saying so far, your response should be that its’ fine, as long as they don’t drive dangerously.
The general consensus is that a certain amount of BAC means its very likely for a person to be too impaired to drive safely. Though there may be a small percentage of people who drive perfectly (or better) when drunk, it’s not enough to allow everyone else to experiment with the rest of our lives and insurance rates.
We choose to criminalize driving with .08% or higher BAC. You really are acting uneducated about how much of a problem drunk driving is. You don’t have the right to drive with lots of alcohol in your bloodstream, or otherwise impaired. You never had this right so it was never taken away from you.
Back to the member of Congress–er–clown example. Putting on clown makeup does not make a person more likely to be a child molestor. Drinking lots of drinks does make a person more impaired to drive a motor vehicle. Did you have a bad experience with a clown in your youth, BTW? 
I have heard this several places before. (Mythbusters, anyone?)
That’s why it makes no sense not to criminalize tiredness while driving and to criminalize drunk driving.
The only reason not to outlaw fatigued driving is that it would be next to impossible to enforce and/or prove. It would end up being the judgement of the police officer who pulled the driver over.
Well, the article argues quite persuasively. To a certain extent it makes sense - why only criminalise one form of impairment just because we can measure it? And why be able to do biological tests on people at the side of the road?
But on the other hand, if there’s one form of impairment we can easily measure, isn’t that a good idea? The fact we can’t measure all the others is not a reason not to test this one… We measure driving skill by having a licensing system, we measure roadworthiness via a system of vehicle inspections (the MOT in the UK, for instance).
Driving isn’t just something you go out and do, it’s a licensed activity. In other areas of society we expect license holders to maintain and be held to certain standards: hygiene in restaurants, competence in our doctors, etc. Imposing certain requirements on conduct, which are periodically checked by the state, is exactly what we accept and require in all these other areas of life. If we want to drive, the potential costs of a mistake are rather great - it makes sense to hold us to similarly high standards.
It’s always seemed faintly remarkable to me, given the complexity of a car and it’s operation, the average person’s lack of understanding of how it works, and it’s large size and high speed that ordinary people (such as myself) are considered safe to drive under any circumstances!
I’m not convinced randomly stopping individuals without grounds for suspicion is really the way to go. But even if the current implementation of the inspection process is sometimes flawed, the basic principle of having a legal limit on blood alcohol seems sound to me.
Actually, everybody’s being pulled over. I don’t think it’s illegal. The sanctity of your car is not broken, again, unless officers find probable cause. I don’t like sharing the road with drunk/impaired people. I don’t have a problem with sobriety checkpoints. Nor do I have a problem with roadblocks that may be set up in the event of an Amber Alert, fugitive in the area, or similar. To me it’s part of the community working together to make the place safer.
If roadblocks or checkpoints start being set up for less-clear reasons, like to see if you’re a certain religion, then I’ll have just as much a problem with it as I’m sure you will.
But they don’t.