Originally Posted by chipcom
I was always intrigued by the idea of having to pass a breath test to be able to start/enter your car. Has anyone's state/province ever took that idea seriously?
MI played around with this a while back for habitual drunk drivers. The devices were called interlocks and prevented the car from starting unless the driver blew 0.00. Unfortunately, these devices were easily defeated by having a sober friend/neighbor/relative blow into it for you.
The two big changes that need to happen in MI are:
#1. Change the culture of drunk driving. It is just too acceptable here. If peoples friends would leave them for driving drunk (like they might do for doing hard core drugs say) it would really reduce it, but most of the conversation here regarding drunk driving centers around how to avoid getting caught.
#2. Make it easier to arrest and convict drunk drivers. In MI, mostly due to legislative problems created by the defense attorney lobby, it is very difficult to arrest and convict a drunk driver. It is literally at LEAST at 2 hour long call with paperwork, etc. and can easily be up to 4 hours or more. The defense attorneys want to put all sorts of road blocks in our way for what they argue is "fairness" and protecting peoples rights, etc, but what really equates to protecting their cottage industry of defending drunks.