The Glade 4.0

true, but that at least involves 2 idiots and not just 1

Sometimes. Sometimes the other person is someone who is abused, or a child or something like that.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The ignition devices require you to blow again at random intervals while driving.

If you want to drop the hammer on DUI then just make them mandatory for everyone. Since we know people with suspended licenses will all drive anyway, and it's money out of your pocket to house them in a jail, then we might as well spend that money to prevent most DUIs in the first place.

Yes, and most accidents occur within 10 miles of home. That's not as effective as you think it is, especially in cases where they have a kid or someone with them. Besides, all it does is log it and maybe set off some alarm. It can't shut the engine off; that would be horrendously unsafe.



Which is absurd. Then not only do people have to pay for a device, they have to deal with the breathalyzer going off at random when they haven't done anything. They also may not be suitable for athsmatics and other people with repiratory issues.

What part of "without unacceptable side effects" was confusing to you?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'll give it to you if there's a child in the car, but if the passenger is sober, then why don't they drive?

Obviously the device is not perfect, but it would massively cut down on drunk driving. Sure, it would be a massive inconvenience, but not much more so than the cost associated with building and staffing 50% more prisons than we have now to put the people who are caught driving while suspended in.

Thanks. It happened a number of years ago.

I certainly understand that it's not possible to eradicate drunk driving. However, I think that the penalties for it today are limp wristed at best. While I don't believe that all drunk driving will be stopped by increasing the penalty, I do think that a lot of drunk driving will be reduced by increasing the penalty. What it really boils down to is a culture change, where everyone gets that driving drunk isn't "ok".

As to your earlier post, yeah I'd be focusing on those who were impared while driving on a suspended license. And yes the BAC is very imperfect. Unfortunately the way of our legal system requires that there be some kind of objective line to say that you've crossed, so it's what we have to work with. Really my point was not that .08 is great or some magical "ok" number, but to point out that it's actually not hard at all to stay underneath it if you're paying any amount of attention at all. And if you're not and getting plastered, then call a **** cab.

I think most people get that its not OK, but most people who drive drunk either A) don't care, or are alcoholics, or B) aren't aware of how impaired they are.

Penalties have been steadily increasing over the years, although I would say they've been diluted by misguided lowering of BAC limits. By expanding the pool of drunk drivers, we've created a situation where there are so many of them that only the worst offenders get serious consequeneces. Constantly lowering the BAC makes people just play the same game and actually distracts from more serious offenders. Raising the consequences for going over the limit makes it a lot less attractive to play the game and try to get it thrown out if you get arrested because if you lose, it sucks.



Well, it actually doesn't require an objective number, you can convict based on the persons' actions. Its that rather than just use the BAC as evidence, we want to put a hard limit on it. In reality we should really just use it as another piece of evidence demonstrating the person's impairment.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Seriously though.

How hard is it to not drive if you've had alcohol? How hard is it to not drink if you know you're going to be driving?

Zero sympathy from me on the DUI front. Its just absolute stupidity.

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Holy shitsnacks!

It's not that hard, but it's also harder than you think.

How long ago is "had alcohol"? How far in the future is "going to be driving"?

Most of the time, not a problem, but if you mean "not driving with ANY alcohol in your system" its an issue.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

well the decision to drive requires judgement. Impaired judgement is a side effect of alcohol. *sigh*

Google to the rescue

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4397

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You can drink Sunday night, wake up Monday morning with a hangover and still be >0.08 BAC when you drive to work. I'm willing to bet this is pretty common, actually.

The amount of alcohol required as well as the completely piss poor planning of time makes me have zero sympathy.

Again, if you use the 200lb guy scenario, you're talking about needing to have 6 beers in 4 hours or more to hit .08 AND then drink enough past that to stay drunk while you sleep. Your kidney can process about a beer an hour give or take. So if you're going to say up super late and then be still legally drunk while you drive to work the next morning after 4 hours of sleep, you'd need to drink 10 beers in 4 hours. Increase that by another beer in the same time period for each extra hour of sleep you get.

If you're doing that on a work night, you've got issues.

Those people are idiots and shouldn't be exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide, much less driving.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Yeah, I'm with Aizle and teh M00se. There are few things on which I'm hardline, but DUI is definitely one of them.

This. I don't know how you can think this is "pretty common", Xeq. Either the person is going to bed quite late and/or getting up extremely early, or they're drinking an assload of alcohol.

The average person processes alcohol at 0.015% per hour. So, if you're at twice the legal limit thatsat least 5 hours and 20 minutes to get back down to 0.08%.. not sober, just the limit. Getting to 0 would be 10 hours. That's a lot of drinking.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You can't focus on the average metabolic rate. First of all, there's wide variation in alcohol metabolism rates amongst individuals. Hell, the metabolism rate in a particular individual can vary quite a bit. If one night you get unlucky and hit the low end of the range, you're screwed. Someone who drinks regularly is bound to have this happen by chance a few times. That's not even factoring in things that can significantly decrease the rate of absorption of the alcohol, like eating a lot, or the effects of drugs, like aspirin which significantly reduces alcohol metabolism.

I'm not arguing that 0.08% is a bad place to draw the line, just that it's pretty unfair to enact amazingly harsh punishments at that BAC level, especially on a first offense. In my opinion, the severity of your punishment should be based on your BAC, one shouldn't get much for getting pulled over with a 0.08%, but get pulled over with a 0.2% or something and you should go right to jail, even on a first offense.

None of that matters. If you drink, you do not drive.

Period.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Really? For how long? This hypothetical person has already had a regular night's sleep in between drinking and driving, how long do you expect people to wait?

I'm not even going that far. I'll frequently drive after I've had a drink or two with a meal. If you're impaired you don't drive. Know your limits, know when you're impaired and don't drive.

But really Xeq, you're posting some absurd situation and trying to say that it's unfair to get punished harshly. Dude, in all seriousness, if you're drinking enough the night before you have to go to work that you're still drunk when you wake up for work, you NEED to be punished harshly for being a complete and total **** idiot if for no other reason.

Dude, do you even realize what you're typing?

For someone to have a regular nights sleep and still be drunk, a 200lb guy would have to drink 14 beers in 4 hours.

That's not the description you gave.

You said partying on sunday, and waking up monday still drunk and hungover.

Either way, I don't care. If you drink, you don't drive.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I know what I'm typing. Yeah, drinking 14 beers in 4 hours the night before is irresponsible. But eat a lot of food, take some aspirin before bedtime, and now you run the real risk of still being at 0.08% with only 6 or 7 drinks.

And again, that STILL doesn't make it OK, as in we should do nothing. But it's not fair to put the guy in prison for months or revoke his license forever for this "horrendous offense."

Yes, it totally is.

There is absolutely no excuse for DUI. None.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Then maybe you shouldn't have 6-7 drinks?!?

Jesus on a **** pogo stick, is not having 6-7 drinks with a meal some huge imposition?