Posted on 09/24/2006 6:16:50 PM PDT by Dubya
Drinking and driving is wrong.
But the punishment for gettting caught is its own cottage industry.
You get:
Probation, which equals cash payments.
Driving School: cash payments
Substance Abuse counseling: cash payments
Lawyers: cash payments
Insurance hikes: lots o cash.
Drug testing: cash payments
All this would be okay except for one thing. None of it helps people stop driving drund and the people administering the probation/counseling et al. couldn't care less if you ever drove drunk again--they just want their money. It's enough to drive you to drink.
This "folk-wisdom" never made any sense to me. I think that what actually happens is that when a drunk driver crosses the center line and hits an oncoming car from the side, the drunk driver is protected by the engine from their own car.
"Another of the Mother’s most popular lies is: “At .08 BAC, a driver is 16 times more likely to be involved in a crash’’ than if he had consumed no alcohol at all. Former MADD President Karolyn Nunnallee goes on to say that “many people are dangerously impaired at even .05 BAC.’’ That’s the level most people will have after one beer on an empty stomach.
Where does MADD get those alleged facts? Only they seem to know. Neither is even remotely true. Dr. H. Laurence Ross, a professor at the University of New Mexico and author of Confronting Drunk Driving, says ‘’the potential of alcohol to impair drivers and cause accidents is directly proportionate to the amount consumed.’’ According to Dr. Ross, adoption of the .08 standard has the potential to increase by 60 per cent the number of motorists arrested for “drunk driving’’ —but without any concomitant decrease in either fatality or accident rates.
Accident statistics show that impairment of driving ability seldom takes place until BAC levels exceed .10. A BAC of .08 or less means there is little enough alcohol in his or her system that it is extremely unlikely to appreciably affect coordination, reaction times, vision, or judgment in a normal person. Fewer deaths occur in accidents involving drivers with BACs between .08 and .09 than involving those with BACs between .01 and .03, which is cough-syrup territory. So does lowering the BAC and putting more people in jail going to make the roads safer? No. The NHTSA tried to twist the figures but the federal government’s in-built watchdog, the GAO (General Accounting Office) took them to task for their lies and they had to backtrack, finally admitting lowering the BAC in such states as North Carolina did not have any noticeable effect on alcohol-related crashes. It did succeed in putting a lot more Americans in jail for having a beer after work, however."
My take on all this is that while the government considers you a drunk at .08, statistics don't! The level needs to be raised to .11. The Government propagandistic jihad against drivers and the criminalization of otherwise law abiding citizens who have had something to drink, but are not impaired, is disgusting.
Less than 1/10 of 1% of wrecks in the U.S. are due to mechanical failure, 99% due to driver error and .5% due to weather.
There are no true numbers on the % of drivers under the influence at any given time while there are many estimates depending on who you listen to.
We need better drivers first and sober drivers always.
Couldn't possibly agree with you more. I live in Harris County. Situation here is out of control. Those insane bitches from MADD need to go live with Cindy Sheehan. They are going for defacto prohibition.
Yup.
Reminds me of the scene from Atlas Shrugged where a government flunky is face to face with one of the heroes:
Hero: How the hell you expect me to obey all the laws and directives you've been passing?
Flunky: You idiot! We don't WANT you to obey the law. We want you to break it. You know why? Guilt. You can't whip an entire populace, but if you can make them feel guilty about something, anything, they'll bring the whip to you and ASK you to beat them.
By the way, I'm on your side.
Probation officers (some, not all) are sometimes worse than cops (some, not all) for their overbearing, tyrannical power trips they pull on their charges. Nothing like having the power to belittle and humiliate someone in their own home and there's not a damn thing that person can do about it.
Nice liberal tactic there. What happened to the girl is sad but there are many people who get paralyzed or suffer disfiguration from regular traffic accidents than for DUIs. The DUI movement is just another big government scam.
What about the repeat offenders, the REAL DRUNKS whose BAC is way over the .08% threshold.
DUI laws ensare honest people who go out for a couple of beers after work or go out for dinner, while the law keeps slapping the hands of the hardcore drunks who shouldn't be out on the road.
Yeah, there are things worst than jail.
BUMP!
Thanks!
That about sums up what I see is going on in this great nation. Criminalize everyone!
Seems to be a pretty lively discussion.
On the other hand, drinking while driving and driving while drunk are two very different things.
I'm 59 years old and grew up in Louisiana where the legal drinking age was 18 and it was perfectly legal to drink a beer while driving.
Texas made it illegal to drink while driving only 5 or so years ago, they were the last to do so.
I would like to see statistics comparing folks who have accidents while having a drink and being under .008 and those who have accidents will having a rootbeer and being under .008.
Think the stats would vary greatly?
Never-the-less I have no problem with the law against drinking while driving. I drink for the relaxation or buzz or whatever and I would imagine I would have to attain .008 to realize those goals. So I can wait until I'm not behind the wheel.
I do believe that the "open container" laws are an infringement on our freedom.
If I have no alocohol in my system and therefore am not drinking while driving, why should my passengers not be allowed to have a drink?
I have beening searching around the net trying to find some facts on probation and money.
All I find are calls for more probation and lots more money.
"I might agree if one had to be drunk to get a DWI. But today a glass of wine before and after dinner is legally drunk. 2 or 3 beers with the boys on the way home from work and you're legally drunk."
Where is it written that you have a right to 'drink 2 or 3 beers' and then go operate a piece of heavy machinery? If the crane operator doing heavy lifting in the downtown area where you work and where your family might go to school and shop, what excuse would you make for him if he got called to task for knocking back 2 or 3 beers and then asking for the keys to the crane? Would you want the pilot of the airliner that YOU are on doing the same thing?
There are nations in the world where the alcohol limit for driving is .00 While .08 is arbitrary, it is arguably safe in most cases. If you want to equal or exceed that, operate your car in your own yard and run it against a tree, for all I care, but don't go onto the road near me or anyone I care about.
That is the standard.
Rumor has it, there is difficulty finding juries for DWI cases anymore because everyone has been touched in one way or another.
Look not for relaxation of the standard, but for elimination of jury trials.
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