Can someone help me understand thinking that drunk driving is ok?

[SMOGZINN]

if you know your limits it's ok, however most don't know their limit or are pressured into going over their limits.

The real problem is that the closer you get to your limit the more impaired you are and less able to judge accurately if you are at your limit. Drugs, including alcohol modify our perceptions. Then can no longer trust those perceptions. Most people don’t seem to understand this.

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[SMOGZINN]

Devil's Advocate: If this is true that most people drive dozens to hundreds of times drunk before caught, then statistically most drunk driving is safe. Just a thought.

That would only be true if every time you are unsafe you are caught.

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[SMOGZINN]

Well what I mean is that if large amounts of people are driving legally drunk every day where are the accidents and deaths? I live in an area where there are 50+ DUI's in the paper every weekend and maybe only 1-2 deaths a year. So assuming we only catch a small amount (Let's call it 10%) that means we have 450 people drunk driving every weekend and getting home safe.

The argument could be made that maybe .08 is too low as we have all these legally drunk people driving around just fine.

Or we actually catch most drunk drivers and that is why we have such a low amount of deaths/accidents.

Or the vast majority of wrecks are not reported as being caused by drunk drivers even though they are.

An example, just the other day a lady backed out of her driveway and hit my step-daughters van parked in our driveway. To do so she needed to make a 90 degree turn and go through our lawn, and still hit the van with enough speed to total it. But since we live in a nice white suburbanite neighborhood, and she was a middle-aged white woman, and it was about 4 in the afternoon, no one ever thought to test her for drugs or alcohol. But I would bet 3-1 she was in her car because she ran out of vodka or valium, or both. We called the cops, and since the accident happened on private property they arrived about 3 hours later. The cop got her insurance information and filed a report, I don’t know if he even asked her if she had been drinking.

 

[BUTCH1]

I mean sometimes i understand it. Say you are at a all you can eat buffet with open bar. then you just gotta drink a bunch and drive home. that's ok right?

No, it's not. My former employer had a company party at a local water-park, it was hot as hell and free Corona and Heineken went down fast. Next thing I knew I had 8-9 of them and that's a lot for someone who doesn't drink often. Rather than attempt to drive home I found a cozy spot in the wave-pool and took a nap. The life guard thought I was dead so he came over to check me out. I must have looked like a beached mammal LOL, anyway I waited 6 hours before driving home. Probably still had some alcohol in my system but I felt a lot better and drove OK.

 

[madoka]

Sad to see that this innocent girl was recently killed by a drunk driver.

A new car that Diana Pozderca’s parents had scrimped and saved to buy the Sterling Heights teen was awaiting as a surprise for her on Sept. 11 as she drove home from a friend’s house.

The 17-year-old, June graduate of Stevenson High School was planning to visit her older brother the next day at Michigan State University, and her parents were waiting at home to give her the Ford Fusion they had bought her.

"Tragically, Diana never made it home,” Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith said at a news conference Tuesday. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Smith said. "This poor girl never had a chance."

As Pozderca neared home, just before 9 p.m., her 2001 Mercury Sable was struck head-on by a vehicle driven by off-duty veteran Warren firefighter Tad Alan Dennis.

Smith said Dennis, at a conservative estimate, was driving at least twice the posted 35 mph speed limit on Plumbrook and had a blood alcohol level twice the legal driving limit of 0.08 when his vehicle plowed head-on into Pozderca's Sable. The force of the collision pushed the teen’s car back 75 feet, police reported at the time.

 

[Linux23]

Wow. So sad.

 

[Elganja]

there should be a zero tolerance policy, not even the slightest bit of alcohol

but the ramifications for drinking and driving, and texting while driving, etc... should all be the same, as they all inhibit your ability drive safely

 

[JSt0rm]

we need self driving cars. Its pretty obvious we dont want to drive. We want to drink and text and bullshit.

 

[Linux23]

we need self driving cars. Its pretty obvious we dont want to drive. We want to drink and text and bullshit.

I welcome self driving vehicles. That way it eliminates these asshats behind the wheel of a 2 ton moving object.

 

[BUTCH1]

we need self driving cars. Its pretty obvious we dont want to drive. We want to drink and text and bullshit.

Speak for yourself. I DO NOT want to pay for this technology, I DO NOT drink and drive, I DO NOT text and drive,(I have a $30 dumb-phone which I refuse to get rid of because it can go 3 days without being recharged). Why not a 3 year mandatory jail sentence for FIRST time offenders rather than taking away my freedom to choose. I love computers but I don't want one as a "car nanny" because some other F-ing morons have a driver's license.

 

[brianmanahan]

Speak for yourself. I DO NOT want to pay for this technology, I DO NOT drink and drive, I DO NOT text and drive

even if you are driving perfectly, you could have an unexpected medical condition happen and be partially or totally incapacitated.

this happened to me about 15 years ago. it's the only wreck i have ever been in. luckily nobody was hurt.

 

[88keys]

If you want to test your level of impairment, test your ability to read fine print at an arm's length.

I have 20/20 vision and I can read fine print from good distance while sober and you'd be very surprised at how little alcohol it takes for this to suddenly become difficult.
Though I don't know whether this method would be effective for the bespectacled.

 

[BUTCH1]

even if you are driving perfectly, you could have an unexpected medical condition happen and be partially or totally incapacitated.

this happened to me about 15 years ago. it's the only wreck i have ever been in. luckily nobody was hurt.

This is true as a possibility but again, if the government is going to force me to ride in a computer-guided car THEY can pay for it. I'll give up my keys after you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

 

[DrPizza]

even if you are driving perfectly, you could have an unexpected medical condition happen and be partially or totally incapacitated.

this happened to me about 15 years ago. it's the only wreck i have ever been in. luckily nobody was hurt.

I've had the blue screen of death hundreds of times more often than I've had a sudden unexpected medical condition that would jeopardize my driving ability.