Drunk driving

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It's a part of everyday reality. We've probably all seen it happen around us and go unpunished far more often than we've had even remote contact with a real case of real consequences coming.

On the one hand, there are laws against it, there are movements and organisations and all, but it doesn't look like people care... It looks like everyone seems to think it isn't going to happen to him. That he will be an exception.

It starts to look real when it happens to someone you know, as it's been for me recently. I'm perfectly aware that putting the drunken idiot behind the bars won't revert anything, but the fact that drunk driving is so widely silently accepted or at least tolerated is surely not going to spare any future victims.

I'm beginning to wonder if the idiot is going to pay for it or if he won't perhaps escape on a legal technicality. Continuances, leaves, lazy prosecutors... even if the police actually gets you.

Campaigns won't help so long as they are ignored. But how to stop them from being ignored is beyond me. Not even pictures of people massacred by drunken idiots seem to help. Is there any way other than sticking a draconic punishment to it?

I have to believe that taking their cars is not such a bad idea. Or at least forcing a sale. Apart from taking the driving license away. If someone doesn't think twice about driving drunk, will the lack of driving license ever stop him? Hilarious naivete. Take their cars away.

Legally, I think it should be treated the same as burning someone's house without directly intending to kill anyone but without caring to check if it's empty. It's called dolus eventualis in Latin and there's no good translation. Basically, even if you don't intend to kill someone, you know there is a chance but you don't care. It's more than simple negligence. Perhaps not every single drunken driver should be tried for homicide after this manner, but many should.

If they don't care that we can die, why should we care that they want to drive? Give them a lifetime ban and enforce it.

A penny for your thoughts?

 

You are correct. Drunk driving is not taken seriously until multiple offenses or until someone gets killed. Most juries are not willing to put someone behind bars for something that they have probably done themselves (I'm as guilty as anyone). My neighbor (a defense lawyer) once told me that if nobody got hurt, rarely does the defendant suffer any real penalites (fines only).

A lifetime ban on driving would probably ruin someone's life. A stiff penalty if no one gets hurt.

 

One problem is that when people are drunk, many loose all rational thought, and they cant consider the consequences of their actions, and thus will drive anyway. Yes that punishment might stop people who have only had 1 or 2 drinks and are only just over the legal limit, but it wont stop people who are properly drunk.

 

Well, but maybe they won't even start drinking if they know they are going to drive?

Perhaps a lifetime ban isn't proper for someone who thought he would make it home after a beer. But for ravers who get roaring drunk and enter into mayhem mode, it sounds about proper.

 

You could do what they did in Norway:

Random testing, including closing off roads and testing everyone for example first thing Sunday morning......

Over the limit = 3 weeks prison sentence (mandatory) + minimum 2 year ban.

Sure as hell had an effect on drink driving!

 

Maybe not...
Teenagers at 17+ (and older as well) find it to be fun (challenge etc.).

As someone has posted here, these irresponsible people don't realise the weight of their responsibility until someone gets killed.


Edit: grammar

[ January 11, 2006, 03:55: Message edited by: Baronius ]

 

I read somewhere that the British government were going to introduce breathalyser keys for people who are caught drinking and driving. You breath into it and if you're above a certain alcohol blood level then the car won't start. That seems like the best idea, although catching them in the first place would be another matter.

 

It is taken seriously here, I am always shocked at somewhat appaled at the lax and relaxed attitude I meat towards drunken driving abroad. People I respect seems to see no big trouble about having a few drinks and then driving home. They claim to not be "drunk". If you have been drinking anything at all you shouldnt drive period. If you want to drive to the bar, perhaps have one beer and then dont drive for at least an hour. All tests show that the ability to reach and ones spatial awarness is severely impaired even after small amount of alcohol.

It is mostly a matter of attitude, people dont refrain from drinking and driving because they think they will get caught, they risk for that is so small it might as well not exist. The very fact that some do get caught just shows how many do drink and drive. If you drink and drive you deserve to wrap your car around a tree and splatter your brain all over your steering wheel. The only thing I will mourn is the tree.

 

In NZ they have roadblocks on all roads out of popular drinking locations with compulsory breath testing. Public transport isn't so good here so everyone has to drive. A popular thing in Auckland is 'Dial-a-Driver' where you drive to the pub and when it's time to go home you ring up 'Dial-a-Driver and two people show up in another car and one of them drives your car home for about the same price as a taxi. Saves you having to get a taxi both ways. Brilliant.

 

I myself don't see anything wrong with driving if, for example, you had a beer or two three or four hours before you drive. But like it has been posted above, some people get to that point where they think that they are invincible, and that they can drive, even when they shouldn't.

The problem isn't people who have been in an accident when drinking and driving. Once you severly hurt or even kill somebody, most people will never do it again. What needs to be done is tio find a way to stop people who have never been caught from never doing it.

I don't mean from fear of punishment either. Once you have had enough to drink, the fear of punishment goes down. Something needs to be done that will physically stop someone from driving drunk. Maybe that car breathalyzer should be standard on all vehicles.

Inconvenient, probably. Effective, most assuredly.

 

Make these breathalizers standard on all cars, and the penalty for being caught with a disabled one prison time for reckless endangerment.

If you still get caught for imparied driving after that, then lifetime ban and maybe prison time. You don't care for the safety of those around you, then you shouldn't be around peoinnocent people!

 

Don't be surprised. Sweden is one of the most developed countries of Europe, there the law and everything related works fine, and the way the people think is different (and correct) too than in many other countries.
(I heard that there in Sweden, or in Finland, I don't remember, the prime minister or some similar person maybe a minister, was driving a bicycle, i.e. the public security is so good there. I also heard that there you don't have high fences around houses.)


Back to the alcohol, I see many posts here where people write that much stricter rules should be set up and such. Wouldn't help. The weight of possible punishment won't stop these irresponsible guys to sit into the car and drive.

Edit: grammar...

[ May 19, 2005, 13:16: Message edited by: Baronius ]

 

Well, you are making me proud now here Baronius but just so good as you make it out to be it isnt here. Just two years ago our minister of foreign affairs was murdered in a shopping mall by a deranged lunatic. However, people have an illusion of safety and of rules working and the like and as long as people have that illusion things do tend to work. If you trust the system to work it more often than do work but if you dont trust it to work it wont work. Selffulfilling prophecies and all that jazz.

 

@Jaguar: How about making people think twice about starting to drink when they are somewhere by car?

However, there are also people who get roaring drunk and then take a trip for the fun of it. They won't be put in line by any other means than cracking down on their raving. Confiscating cars would be a good idea.

Well, then some people could use other people's cars. Exchange cars. Drive borrowed cars. I would be strict on this one. Two drunks driving each other's car, take both cars away. Borrowed cars? A little investigation into the possibility of the lender knowing about the borrower's drunk driving habits would be in order. Companies which rent cars should perhaps have breathalysers on all cars by default to avoid the problem.

Heck, why not put breathalysers in all cars ever leaving the factory? Catching someone in a car with the breathalyser removed should be enough of a hint. Mandatory breathalysers plus prison terms for removing or not having one and we're done.

 

Mandatory breath tests in cars? That will cost a pretty penny. I also remember a story a person having their young child blow into it to defeat it.

Stiffer penalties are definitely the way to go, IMO. Make the price for drunk driving so severe that people have to think about it before they start drinking. I would say that a 2-year revocation of driving privileges for the first offense, and a lifetime ban on the second (e.g. if you get caught once, you stop drinking!)

Alcohol is one area where I am all in favor of raising taxes. Not because it will raise revenue, quite the contrary, I want them raised to the point where alcohol gets so expensive it is becomes a deterrent to drinking, and sales go down. This will lower tax revenue, but who cares? I will tell you who, those who abuse alcohol!

 

Extend this philosophy to tobacco, DW, and you've got my vote!

Stiffer penalties on the first offense are a must. A friend's son recently completed a year's probation for his second offense, and it was a very costly proposition. For a while he couldn't drive AT ALL, then he had to pay for the privilege of attaching one of those breathalyzer keys to his car. It was close to $1k, IIRC. During the probation he was subject to random checks, and if he had been found with alcohol in his system he would have gone to jail.

Do all that the first time around and I doubt you'll ever even get to second.

 

You are right joacqin, I totally forgot of Anna Lindh's case

Drunk driving has always been a problem. Chevalier you are a bit idealist, stricter laws wouldn't really help... However, more frequent checking of drivers by police does help, I know it because it worked in Hungary around Easter.

People should feel more responsibility, but many don't. There are lots of drivers under the effects of alcohol, most of them thinks it to be okay, i.e. most of them just goes to the local pub so he thinks that it won't be a problem to drive a bit and then back, short low-traffic village road...

 

Stricter laws would at least prevent people from getting the idea that there's no real punishment for drunk driving. More frequent checking is, of course, a must, but once the first wave of idiots loses their cars, others will have something to ponder.

The accident shouldn't cost the victim a penny, either, if his or her own driving hadn't contributed. Selling the drunk driver's car should cover some of the costs. The excess could go to charities helping the less fortunate drunk drivers' victims. If there is permanent damage to health, the car can be sold, the money put in bank along with the damages accorded by the court, and the interest given to the victim monthly. What a nice SUV you had. Pity you also had twenty margeritas with it.

 

At least in the U.S., it doesn't. If you get into a car accident with someone, and it is determined that you are at fault (whether the reason you're at fault is because you're drunk or just a poor driver) then the person at fault is liable for all damages to the other person's car. Last year I got in a car accident going to work. The guy did $1700 worth of damage to my car, but I didn't pay a penny of it. Of course, if the guy who hits you doesn't have any insurance, and doesn't have any means to pay for the damages, you may get screwed.

I think that it is possible to be responsible if you go out and intend to drink, and later drive home. All reports that I have read says it takes about one hour to process one alcoholic drink. Just this past weekend, my wife and some friends of ours went to a comedy club to see a performance. I had three beers while I was there over the course of the evening. We arrived about 7:00 in the evening and we didn't leave until midnight. I had my last beer around 10:00 and I fully capable of driving home. I would argue that even though I drank three beers over the course of the evening, that my blood alcohol level was close to zero, and well below the legal limit.

I think that the main problem with people is that if you don't injure someone, then there really is no penalty. For example, most states in the U.S. impose a fine and a 90-day suspension of your license for your first offense provided you just got pulled over and weren't involved in an accident. Because the odds of you getting pulled over are so low, the number of people who get caught other than being involved in an accident is low.

The other problem is it isn't the person who has a couple of beers over the course of the night and drives home. The problem is people get totally drunk and often have blood alcohol levels several times the legal limit. I don't care what anyone says - I've been drunk before, and everyone should be able to realize when you're really drunk, that you're in no position to drive a vehicle.

 

Having no insurance is going to be a crime here soon.

By not costing a penny, I didn't mean just the damage done to the car but everything, including the money you put in the drinks machine when waiting for the formalities to be done and the newspaper you read in the hospital.

Theoretically, there's a fine here and maybe a very short term in detention. It may be right for guys fooling around with the limit for the first time, but sometimes it really looks unjust, seeing how they drive before they get caught, even if there's no accident.