skiahh

You can write zero tolerance laws all day, but you have individuals enforcing them. How are you going to police the police who are allowed to use some discretion. Will you put enforcement officers in every patrol car to monitor the patrol officers?

Not a bad idea. In fact, don't most cities already have public transportation that runs most of the night? However, what about rural areas? Or people who live outside the cities? How will you deal with them.

And of course, who's going to pay for all this public transportation. And police the drunks riding on it?

Get rid of checkpoints? And that's because all the drunks drink in bars? Then the parties just move to homes.

Target the bars. Reminds me of the DD joke: Guy stumbles out of the bar, fumbles his keys but eventually gets his car open. Starts it and drives away only to be pulled over by the cops targeting the bar parking lot. They give him the breathalizer only to have it read 0.0 on that and each of the subsequent checks. Finally they ask why he was stumbling and fumbling if he wasn't drunk and he replies he was the DD: Designated Decoy!

Uhhh.... last time I checked, 911 had no tolls associated with it. You can even call it free from a pay phone!

Not so sure they don't have them.

You want to be treated like a vehicle, you have the same rules. Besides, what about the drunk bicyclist who swerves into traffic and causes a sober driver to swerve and hit another vehicle? Nope, don't drink and ride!

Good idea. Others have mentioned the lack of stigma when too many people have them, though. So there still needs to be some stigma attached to the "scarlet letter" for drunk driving.

Uhh... you can't charge someone with Manslaughter (of any flavor) if no one was killed. This one makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Should the 3rd offense be Murder then?

Again, you're getting into the nonsensical. Murder involves killing someone. Injuries do not meet that standard. How about criminal assault and battery?

You're contradicting yourself here. Tough on violent crime. Yes! Murder, ****, assault/battery... but drunk driving? Absent a crash, where's the violence in that? Where do you draw the line on violence? Is burglery violent if the crook picks a lock, walks in takes what he wants and walks out without threatening the victims or breaking anything in the process?

You've got some good ideas, but you need to work on your overall vision here.

crypticlineage

>>>Uhhh.... last time I checked, 911 had no tolls associated with it. You can even call it free from a pay phone!

Not to be a jackass, but we all pay for 911 service, check your phone bill.

wahoonc

Not if you don't have a phone bill But in the context of the post 911 is a "free" call

Aaron

wheel

Well yea you could just charge a person with drunk driving and give them five years. Not like it matters people want to drink and drive, and so do our leaders.

Nachoman

Funny. Mean, but funny.

Rowan

From a site advising students travelling to Japan:

Drinking and driving in Japan is not tolerated and the drink-drive level is zero percent. Even a glass of wine or a beer can result in heavy fines or the loss of your license if you are stopped and checked. If you cause an accident you may lose your license permanently.

It obviously can be done and a national community can find it acceptable. But I think the situation is very long standing in Japan.

Nevertheless, it doesn't stop people from drink-driving as this yahoo article indicates:

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/06122..._telecom_drink

14,000 driving-under-the-influence accidents, killed 707 people... and lobbying to increase penalties after a driver under the influence of alcohol killed three children in Fukuoka.

Oh yeah, the residential speed limit is 40km/h, and you are liable to huge fines if you speed.

Plus this page has some interesting information, too:

https://www.pref.ibaraki.jp/bukyoku/s...2demerits.html

Basically, if your driving causes a fatal accident, the laws are very strict no matter whether it was your fault or not. If dangerous driving, lack of license, fatigue, alcohol or drugs play a part in the negligence, there are serious repercussions in the shape of fines and jail time. The details also differentiate between drink-driving, the BAC threshholds, and driving under the influence.

Thor29

The problem is that Americans think that a good way to solve problems is by making the problem illegal. Such thinking doesn't address the root cause and rarely works. The "War on Drugs" is a good example. It is a tough question, no doubt. Stiff penalties don't work - think about it, if you are dumb enough to drive drunk in the first place, you are probably too dumb (and too drunk) to worry about whether you will be caught. I think part of the problem is too much dependence on the car. 40,000 people a year die in automobile accidents in the USA alone (imagine how many injuries!) and nobody really cares. Not to mention the road killed animals, the parking lots, the pollution, the obesity... Drunk drivers are just the tip of a very large and lethal iceberg.

Roche

Hey, that means 60% of traffic fatalities are caused by sober drivers.

Aren't statistics fun?

Monoborracho

Not everyone lives in the metropolis, nor wishes to.

Anyone wishing to help subsidize a public transportation system for my county of 900 square miles, cut by two major water bodies, and 17,000 people in three towns, please hold up their hands.

Rowan

Yep... nailed it. Drink-driving gets the headlines because drunk people are perceived as social pariahs when they offend. "Innocent" people like the soccer mum who runs over and kills a child at school, or the granny who knocks over and kills a bicyclist, or the driver who wipes out a family in a head-on because he dropped his big Mac... cause more damage, but their actions are deemed as "accidents" and therefore are acceptable in many western societies.

The issues are hugely complex, and are based on community attitudes to "freedom" of behaviour. It's a matter for the community to decide when that freedom is in fact out of control and verges on anarchy. In most democratic countries, it can do that through the ballot box. Is it capable of doing that in America (and I also have to say, in Australia)?

savage24

Okay, who left the gate open over at Advocacy & Safety? They're all getting loose and scattering to the other forums....

kemmer

Well yeah, you would expect that since most drivers on the road are sober. I think its fair to estimate that on average at most 1 in 20 (5%) miles traveled are driven by drunk drivers. I'm sure the percentage of drunk drivers is lower, but lets go with 5%. That would mean 5% of drivers are causing 40% of all traffic fatalities. Statistics are really fun if you know how to make sense of them.

Rowan

And what are you basing your esimtate of 1-in-20 on? Statistics are fun if you know your data source. Plus, is it standard practice to change a measure half way through (from 5% of miles travelled to 5% of drivers)?

I-Like-To-Bike

Not to worry. There are still plenty of "rediculous" generalizations, kooky ideas, and self righteous sermons to be found on A & S. By all the usual suspects.

How 'bout legislating away the danger of "rediculous" drunken bicyclists using cell phones in bike lanes riding WalMart brand bikes AND not wearing Styrofoam hats?

manual_overide

*head asplode*

Big_knob

Couldn't agree more

mike

Thanks for the international perspective and information. That is really interesting about Japan.

Keeping in perspective, though, the USA has TWELVE times the drunk-driving related deaths that Japan has. That doesn't even account for the many tens of thousands of people who are terribly and permanently injured for life, but do not show up on the death count.

I can tell you from experience that Japanese drinkers go out of their way to avoid driving. They plan their evenings so that they do not drive on nights that they know they will be drinking. If they happen to drink on a night they have the car, they call their wives or friends or even a hired service to get them and their car home.

Not only does the drunk driver get fined and lose his license, he can lose the ability to purchase and own a car. So if he wants to drink and drive, he would have to borrow or steal a car. "Hey, pal, Do youuuuu mind ifsshhhh I borrows your car for a spinnnnn?" -OR- "Hey, Ma, can I borrow the car tonight since I don't have one of my own?"

The reason for the success in Japan is probably due to enforcement. The laws they have are similar to the laws in the USA, but in Japan, the laws are enforced rigorously. Also, the driving in Japan is so challenging that one can barely drive there sober, much less with a bit of alchohol in the system. In the USA, the streets are so wide and straight and open that you could almost put the car in auto-drive and sleep for five minutes without any calamity. In Japan, every minute of driving is a white-knuckle experience.

Big_knob

the rationality behind that is that it makes it easier to convict.
It WILL get lower.
One does not necessarily have to have a .08 BAC to be charged & convicted of dui.
If one was to run their vehicle into something/someone & said person has any traces of alcohol or prescription/over the counter drugs in system that will be taken into account in trial.
Edit: I know this not from reading the internet. I learned the above in my 18month course in school.
Yes , i am a graduate student
The penalties just won't be nearly as severe as with having alcohol or any other "under the influence" substance in system.

scott L R

Here we have manditory jail time for all 3rd convictions, the problem is jails are so full they are not implementing it. 1 local drunk has his liscense suspended for 70 years for drunk driving & driving with suspended liscense, this gets him longer suspensions and they took his right to own a car. They can't stop him from driving drunk. He borrows car then drives drunk agin. He owes $7000 in fines pays $30.00 a month.

Proximo

Bingo! You beat me to it.

The only thing I disagree with is the definition of drunk driving. I think everyone assumes that "drunk" means you are slurring your words or stumbling about. That is *not* the case for the great majority of people with a BAL of .08 (or two beers in an hour). They are no more impaired than someone fumbling with a cellphone, eating a Big Mac or screaming at their kids while driving.

The great majority of drunks killing people behind the wheel have a BAL well in excess of .15, usually much higher. Those are the folks you want off the street, not the 110lb secretary who had a glass of wine with friends after work. That is, unless you want to also take the cellphone users, etc, with her. Otherwise, it starts looking like harrasment... which is exactly what MADD is all about. They don't want you drinking *at all*.

wheel

You can have all the laws you want. If people won't follow the logic or you can't enforce them what good does it do. Mob rule.

During 2005, 16,885 people in the U.S. died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, representing 39% of all traffic-related deaths (NHTSA 2006).
In 2005, nearly 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics (Department of Justice 2005). That’s less than one percent of the 159 million self-reported episodes of alcohol–impaired driving among U.S. adults each year (Quinlan et al. 2005).
The drunk driving data provide new details that will help law enforcement and the U.S. Department of Transportation tackle this persistent problem, Secretary Peters said. She noted that in the last two years alone, the Department has invested more than $410 million in impaired driving efforts nationally to fund programs ranging from education and enforcement to treatment and improvements to the judicial process.
https://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd...coholTSF05.pdf

around 2.8 million injuries a year and 42,000 deaths.

Well the attributes to automobiles and public safety and health I think is a different thread, but equally troubling.


Sweden
The lowest illegal BAC level is in Sweden (.02).
Penalties
For first offense with no aggravating circumstances, fines are imposed. For a BAC level between .02 and .10, the amount of the fine is determined by income level as well as BAC level and the circumstances.

For BAC level between .03 and .10, licenses may be revoked for 2 to 12 months depending on the circumstances and the BAC level. Above .10, a minimum 12 months and a maximum 36 months loss of license.

If BAC level is greater than .10, imprisonment for 1 to 2 months. A drunk driver who causes an accident involving a fatality can be imprisoned up to 6 years.


You can go here for other countries
https://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/inju...countries.html

becarefull out there tonight I will be hunkered in my bunker.
Cheers.

Rowan

What are you basing your assertion on? You're own behaviour or research data?

It's not a case of comparing the circumstances of an accident with a five-seconds of distraction -- it's a case of improper judgment and impaired reactions that are latent for the entire time the person is driving.

There are levels in inebriation that are used to judge which laws to use when charging someone. Driving Under the Influence is the most serious (assuming that culpable driving and manslaughter or murder charges aren't brought). The most basic is exceeding the prescribed BAC limit... and then the judgment may be made by law enforcement officers as to whether a more serious charge can be laid.

One thing that is forgotten in this is that people have different ways of metabolising, and the effect of alcohol on them can make them more impaired at 0.08 than, let's say, a confirmed alcoholic at 0.15.

I know that for some people, this probably weakens the argument for prescribed limits, but there is also a school of thought -- in Japan for instance -- that says driving with any alcohol in the blood is too dangerous.

As to the civil liberties arguments, I can see a strong point when there are no facilities made freely available and that are accurate so people can know whether they are breaking the law when the drink and drive. The fact that people can break the law without knowing it does seem anathema. But, then people's perception of their inebriation usually is way underestimated, and much of this perception has to do with the lowering of their inhibitions (or increase in their bravado). It's, I think, a cumulative effect, because if you get away with it once, you are more confident of getting away with it again and again and again.

The best way is to not run the risk at all and don't drink... if you go out with friends, rotate the nominated driver each time... or rejoice and NEVER ridicule if you have a non-drinker in your midst! Otherwise, use a taxi service of some kind

Proximo

Exactly. The prescribed limits do not take into account anything about the individual. There are plenty of stone cold sober folks driving today who are more of a danger than someone who has had a couple of beers and is sitting ~ .08 BAL. If anything, someone who has had a couple of beers is likely to be *more* careful because they know they've been drinking. These aren't the chronic alcoholics with .20 BAL that you *really* want off the street.

Note that I do not drink so I'm not making excuses for my own behavior.

forensicchemist

2 standard 12 ounce American beers will NOT get you to a 0.08 BAC! If you are a male of 150 pounds, it will take about 3-4 beers consumed in just a few minutes, on an empty stomach to get you to the .08 level. If you have eaten a meal recently, or eat while drinking, its going to take more beers. We can also equate a single 12 American beer to a 5 ounce glass of table wine, or 1 ounce 80 proof distilled spirites.

I have read this entire thread with some interest, and also disbelieve during the last few days. As one who works in the area of Forensics, and who specializes in alcohol and alcohol related cases (both criminal and civil) I find much of the information posted here, like the 2 beers and .08 BAC just plain wrong.

mark

Proximo

If I read this correctly,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content

then a drink containing 1oz of alcohol, or 28 grams, will raise the BAC .03%. If the typical person metabolizes 10 grams of alcohol per hour, then three drinks over an hour will raise the BAC to .08%. So, I stand corrected. Three beers in an hour will get you to .08% if you are the average person. As the article points out, results can vary widely depending on the individual.

It doesn't change the fact that a .08% BAC limit does not take into account individual differences and that there are people with 0% BAC on the road that are more dangerous than many with .08% BAC.

Edit: also, many states (CO being one) have a limit of .05 BAC as legally impaired which carries nearly the same penalty as DUI.