Originally Posted by
ItsJustMe
A non-injury DUI is only non-injury from random chance. It's a chance for society to slap the sh*t out of that person. IMO it should count as their one-and-only warning. It should get some penalty, but it should also mean "that's it, we will not tolerate this anymore. You're only lucky you didn't kill someone. Do it again, injury or not, and you forfeit your car and you're in jail for a year.
Right or wrong, that's the way it is with a vast number of criminal acts.
Our system includes the severity of the consequences as a factor in determining severity of punishment.
You start a fire for insurance proceeds, the criminal liability is radically different if someone happens to be asleep inside, you shoot a gun in the air, the results vary dramatically on whether it comes down into someone; you punch someone in the face, it changes things a whole lot if they unfortunately fracture their skull and die falling on a rock.