Drinking laws

[hemiram]

Originally posted by: BlancoNino
Talking on cell phones while driving? A lot of times it's necessary and it should NEVER be banned. My dad had a job where he was a salesman on the road. 'Would have made HORRIBLE time if he pulled over to the side and made all of his phone calls and probably wouldn't have made very good money. I sat next to him and watched him drive flawlessy through strange cities and heavy traffic.

I wonder how cops sleep at night trying to convince themselves they are doing the city a great deed by throwing the book at a middle class family man who had a couple beers and decided to drive home.

The legal limit should be .15....period. And even at .15 anyone who causes a wreck is either a bad driver or a complete idiot. I know people who have passed their drivers test with flying colors after about 8 drinks. Drinking and driving laws are no different than facist gun laws. Some people are irresponsible so lets take the right away from EVERYBODY.

LOL, you must be drinking right now! I was part of one of those DUI test studies about 20 years ago. .08 is about right, because ALL 15 of us out of 20 people taking part in it that got over .10 were seriously impared. One girl was .17 and she couldn't go two car lengths without knocking down cones, or nailing cardboard "pedestrians" alongside the road. I was .14 and didn't do to bad as far as keeping the car in the lanes, but I went way too fast and
slammed the brakes on a lot more than I would ever do sober.

I knew a guy that could drink amazing amounts of booze and seemed to drive fine that way. Not as good as he did sober, but ok, as I followed him home both ways. He was my boss and he refused to give up the keys, and was so damn scary that none of us wanted to get into it with him. He lived less than a mile away from work, so it wasn't too risky.

My thinking on DUIs is you get ONE freebie. Three days in the DUI center, etc, just like it is now. The next time, you lose your car, FOREVER, and you lose your license for 5 years, and if you get caught driving while on suspension, you don't ever get it back, and you go to jail for a couple of years, minimum. The third time, give the idiot 10 years.

I knew 5 people who were killed by drunk drivers and a couple more seriously hurt by them. Two of the people that were killed by drunks were a husband and wife. He was killed in 1972 coming home from work. His wife nearly lost everything due to his not having a lot of insurance. Then, in 2004, she's coming home from her son's house, and a drunk 22 year old runs a stop sign, kills her instantly, and somehow manages to get out of the wrecked car and run to his house. Why he did that I don't know, the cops came to his house almost instantly and he still had glass in his hair and his shoes were still in the car.
He's sitting in a jail cell, where he belongs, for the next 7 years or so, and can't legally drive again.

I was pulled over about a week ago, for weaving. I actually had a sneezing spell. I never drink and drive, so all that happened was he ran my plates and my SS# for wants and let me go.

Anyone stupid enough to drink and drive should pay the price, and it should be a high price!

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: ntdz
Drinking and Driving should absolutely be enforced like it is. Thousands of people die each year because of drunk drivers, and it can all be avoided by just not drinking drunk.

:laugh: Ooops! Knocked back some of grandpa's cough medicine tonight?

 

[KevinH]

There was actually a study done by 20/20 (or one of those shows) where they compared drinking, talking on a phone, and lack of sleep. They compared a same sample group of drivers and funny enough the same sort of mistakes and errors was consisten throughout all the tests. I'm not saying it's okay to drink and drive because clearly it's not but by the same token, sleepy drivers and drivers on the phone are just as big a menace to society. The only difference is, one of these is detectable by a test while the others aren't.

 

[MadRat]

Originally posted by: hemiram
I was pulled over about a week ago, for weaving. I actually had a sneezing spell.

I know somebody who crashed their truck a month ago with the same problem. A sneeze - a cough - a BLAM! He parked his dodge pickup around a tree. We really need to get hefty fines in place for you sneezers before the world is jeopardized by the likes of you!!

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: ahurtt

Originally posted by: GoPackGo

Originally posted by: Agnostos Insania

Originally posted by: GoPackGo

so the driver goes from being driven normally, to the driver going to the other side of the road...and hitting a car head on at lets say 25mph or so? so i let my family drive a vehicle with NO airbags, No seatbelts and no crumple zone?

There you go, folks. It's okay to drink and drive because of airbags and seatbelts. It must be fine to go 100mph in a 20mph zone too. My god you anti-DUI law people are vile, despicably selfish people. As long as you can drink and party who cares if innocent people are put in danger.

Forget driving school, there should be morality tests for getting a license.

So a cop lets a guy by driving at 100 mph in a 20 mph zone?

I just don't think a blood alcohol level is a fair test. Find a real fair test to determine if someone is able to make it home from the bar. If they fail, then they can be busted.

Tell me, lets say i have been up 36 hrs straight, but have one beer in my system. Its the middle of the night and I am driving home and fall asleep. I crash into another car. I kill everyone including myself. Was the crash caused by alcohol? of course not. But the ME does the old blood test and they will say its another case of drunken driving....

Actually, you don't know if it was caused by alcohol in this case. You can't just say "of course not." Maybe that 1 beer was enough to make you just drowsy enough to fall asleep behind the wheel where you wouldn't have otherwise. ANY TIME there is a traffic accident where any amount of alcohol is involved, it will ALWAYS become a factor in the investigation. The ONLY way to avoid that happening is not to drink at all if you are gonna be driving. You don't know what would have happened differently if you hadn't had that 1 beer. The only way to rule it out completely is to not have drunk it. Whether you were actually drunk or not, when that story hits the evening news, the headline is going to say "driver had been drinking."

So you work an hour of overtime and are a little more tired than normal when the accident occurs. Is that a crime too? The .08 wasn't for safety, but for insurance companies profit margins.

 

[GoPackGo]

Drinking and driving laws are nothing but a source of revenue for states.

In 2003 only .0056 percent of the US population died in in an alcohol related fatality. (17,013) Source

In ten years, that number has fallend from 17908. That includes an increase in popluation and a substantial reduction BAC percentages.

Don't be fooled...these laws are just profit centers.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
Drinking and driving laws are nothing but a source of revenue for states.

In 2003 only .0056 percent of the US population died in in an alcohol related fatality. (17,013) Source

In ten years, that number has fallend from 17908. That includes an increase in popluation and a substantial reduction BAC percentages.

Don't be fooled...these laws are just profit centers.

The enforcement may or may not be adequate, but the problem is very real. Given that a population increase would tend to mitigate any reduction in deaths (so that the percentage would have been higher than .0056 *17908/17013), and that enforcement still has to respect probably cause rules, and can't be everywhere at once, the reduction is not exactly 'nothing'.

Anyone who thinks they themself are a good drunk driver has never actually been forced to prove it in a controlled setting, or they wouldn't think so anymore.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

You can play the percentages all day long. The simple fact is that our society is based on the lowest common denominator.

In school, we spend millions on special ed and virtually nothing on fast tracking the gifted kids.

Why should the pursuit of drunks on the road be any different? There exists a certain percentage of our population who are dangerous behind the wheel with any amount of alcohol in them. The theory (as with special ed) is that the government is more helpful the more it gets involved. Plain and simple.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: BlancoNino
DUI laws try to prevent that from happening and in turn screw more responsible people who drink and drive (and yes you can drive while under the influence responsibly) and obey all traffic laws and do absolutley nothing wrong and steal everything away from them and make them go to jail and lose their job and their car.

I vehemtly disagree. At .08 your reflexes have definitely slowed. However, the most important impairment is in your judgement and every test of judgement at .08 that I have seen shows this impairment precludes the idea that driving this way is "responsible". It is the drivers reaction to unusual driving situations that is the biggest problem and no one can tell when they will put in a situation where they will need their full, unimpaired judgement.
If their was a compelling reason for people to drive under the influence I will admit that the lives saved by going to .08 from .1 is insignificant. But how many lives lost are insignificant? Why should anyone be driving impaired?

 

[slash196]

Frankly, I don't care where the limit is. I will never drive drunk. If I have one beer, it's like drinking water. Two beers and I still don't really feel anything. Three beers and I'll stick around until I feel fine. Any more and I have a DD. And frankly, if I'm having 3 or more beers, I'm in a situation where I won't have to drive anywhere. It's called common freaking sense. More people need to use it.

 

[techs]

And I forgot to add this. While a young, healthy person at .08 may still have better reflexes than an elderly or sick driver the problem with drinking to .08 is what it does to your judgement. Not your driving judgement but your judgement that you can still have couple more in the bar.
In other words you may intend to only drink to .08 but then your impaired judgement lets you think I can have a couple more. So the .08 limit actually works to keep people from drinking to .08 or more.

 

[marincounty]

The reason we have a .08% standard for drunk driving is not based on science or anything else, it is because the congress decided to withold 5% of the highway funds from any state that doesn't have a .08% standard.
In other words, bribery.
Here's a scenario for you:
Two cars are driving down the road at the speed limit, one car is driven by a drunk, the other car is driven by a sober person.
A pedestrian steps from behind a van into the street into the path of each car, and is struck and killed. The sober driver gives the police his information and is allowed to go with no charges or a ticket. The drunk driver is sobriety tested, arrested and taken away to jail, probably to face charges of felony drunk driving, manslaughter or murder, faces lawsuits, etc...
Is this fair?

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Tab
Nobody is drunk at .08 but you're driving is impaired, trust me. There is a reason many states have gone form .1 to .08.

Yeah, conform or lose your federal highway dollars, isn't it?

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: marincounty
The reason we have a .08% standard for drunk driving is not based on science or anything else, it is because the congress decided to withold 5% of the highway funds from any state that doesn't have a .08% standard.
In other words, bribery.
Here's a scenario for you:
Two cars are driving down the road at the speed limit, one car is driven by a drunk, the other car is driven by a sober person.
A pedestrian steps from behind a van into the street into the path of each car, and is struck and killed. The sober driver gives the police his information and is allowed to go with no charges or a ticket. The drunk driver is sobriety tested, arrested and taken away to jail, probably to face charges of felony drunk driving, manslaughter or murder, faces lawsuits, etc...
Is this fair?

Ahh, beat me to it, LOL. That's where this thread came from.

You know, I'd like to see a study of actual driving preformance after a couple beers instead of one where your reflexes are 1/1000 of a second slower after two beers.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: BlancoNino
20% of people who blow .08 are actually impaired.

First, unless you reply to the contrary, I'll assume you're talking about laws against drunk driving..

Second, where do you get your specs? You've given us nothing to back up your assertion.

What's everyones opinions on this? I think we're using way too much police resources.

I think you have a very poor understanding of the physics of a ton, give or take, of rolling mass loaded with volitile fuel. I don't believe your20% number, but assuming, for the moment, that it's anywhere near reality, that's still far too many vehichles in motion with less than full control.

Only a moron or an alcoholic in denial would advocate loosening restrictions on driving while intoxicated. :|

 

[Gaard]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
Drinking and driving laws are nothing but a source of revenue for states.

In 2003 only .0056 percent of the US population died in in an alcohol related fatality. (17,013) Source

In ten years, that number has fallend from 17908. That includes an increase in popluation and a substantial reduction BAC percentages.

Don't be fooled...these laws are just profit centers.

What percentage of the US population died period?

 

[Apocalypse X]

If you drink and drive you deserve whatever happens to you....
All it takes is one irresponsble driver to kill a loved one....
Who cares if the other 80% are not inpaired.....

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Apocalypse
If you drink and drive you deserve whatever happens to you....

But others you kill or injur don't, and drinking and driving absolutely raises the chance of some kind of mishap.

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Only a moron or an alcoholic in denial would advocate loosening restrictions on driving while intoxicated. :|

You're wasting your breath--they don't give a sh!+ about anyone else.

And for you, OP (or any of the other idiots whining that the police should let you do whatever the hell you want), here's hoping if you DO kill someone while driving drunk, someone from their family returns the favor. :disgust::|

 

[Engineer]

I'm not sure that .08 is low enough....these two little girls have no daddy - (my brother - RIP)

You drink, you drive...if you kill someone, I only hope it's yourself. If you are caught....lock em up and no license...period!

 

[BlancoNino]

Originally posted by: Engineer
I'm not sure that .08 is low enough....these two little girls have no daddy - (my brother - RIP)

You drink, you drive...if you kill someone, I only hope it's yourself. If you are caught....lock em up and no license...period!

You drink, you drive...you kill someone...you're a bad driver to begin with. It's not that hard to drive after a few drinks trust me I've never seen ANYONE break a single driving law. If their reaction time is slowed down and some idiot punk is illegally crossing the street and they can't stop...it's the pedestrians fault.

It's sad to know that MADD has so much power as their judgement is clearly clouded with hatred and prejudice.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: BlancoNino

Originally posted by: Engineer
I'm not sure that .08 is low enough....these two little girls have no daddy - (my brother - RIP)

You drink, you drive...if you kill someone, I only hope it's yourself. If you are caught....lock em up and no license...period!

You drink, you drive...you kill someone...you're a bad driver to begin with. It's not that hard to drive after a few drinks trust me I've never seen ANYONE break a single driving law. If their reaction time is slowed down and some idiot punk is illegally crossing the street and they can't stop...it's the pedestrians fault.

It's sad to know that MADD has so much power as their judgement is clearly clouded with hatred and prejudice.

Uh, actually, it's always considered the driver's fault in areas where pedestrians are to be expected.

You are not as good a driver drunk as you are sober. Pretend and brag all you want, but you would never be able to prove it because it isn't true.

It's arrogant idiots like you who drink and drive like it's 1960 that help make the roads dangerous for the rest of us.

 

[BlancoNino]

Uh, actually, it's always considered the driver's fault in areas where pedestrians are to be expected.

You are not as good a driver drunk as you are sober. Pretend and brag all you want, but you would never be able to prove it because it isn't true.

It's arrogant idiots like you who drink and drive like it's 1960 that help make the roads dangerous for the rest of us.

I said illegally crossing the street. Meaning not at a street corner or cross walk. Or maybe the pedestrain is dressed in black like an idiot (I see this almost every night I have half a mind to just run em over the way they dart out into traffic ilegally).

Just make sure to punish everyone for the actions of those who drink and drive irresponsibly (I.E. The ones that get into wrecks). That's always fair. There is a huge number of people who drink and drive (not completely plastered of course) twice a week and have been doing it for years without any sign of poor driving.

Also, like i've mentioned before, the ones who really get punished are the sophisticated hard-working members of society (the ones who don't wreck) because they actually follow the laws and won't be able to drive and will have to pay fines whereas some low-life poor scum will get DUI after DUI after DUI and not care that he's driving without a license or because he's drunk. That's why the numbers haven't gone down.

 

[ntdz]

Originally posted by: marincounty
The reason we have a .08% standard for drunk driving is not based on science or anything else, it is because the congress decided to withold 5% of the highway funds from any state that doesn't have a .08% standard.
In other words, bribery.
Here's a scenario for you:
Two cars are driving down the road at the speed limit, one car is driven by a drunk, the other car is driven by a sober person.
A pedestrian steps from behind a van into the street into the path of each car, and is struck and killed. The sober driver gives the police his information and is allowed to go with no charges or a ticket. The drunk driver is sobriety tested, arrested and taken away to jail, probably to face charges of felony drunk driving, manslaughter or murder, faces lawsuits, etc...
Is this fair?

Yes, it's fair.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: BlancoNino

Originally posted by: Engineer
I'm not sure that .08 is low enough....these two little girls have no daddy - (my brother - RIP)

You drink, you drive...if you kill someone, I only hope it's yourself. If you are caught....lock em up and no license...period!

You drink, you drive...you kill someone...you're a bad driver to begin with. It's not that hard to drive after a few drinks trust me I've never seen ANYONE break a single driving law. If their reaction time is slowed down and some idiot punk is illegally crossing the street and they can't stop...it's the pedestrians fault.

It's sad to know that MADD has so much power as their judgement is clearly clouded with hatred and prejudice.

You're a complete stupid fool! :|