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Bad Drunk Driving Laws, False Evidence and a Fading Constitution

The Giant Noodle

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As I’ve said in previous posts, drunk driving has become a cash cow for local governments starving for revenue. See DUI: Government’s Cash Cow, How to Make a Million in the DUI Business and What if the Cash Cow Goes Dry?. This has lead to such things as putting pressure on cops with DUI arrest quotas. See Do Police Have Quotas?, "Yes, We Have No Quotas" and "Inside Edition" Documents DUI Quotas Across the US. The hunger of municipalities for money might also influence some judges in their rulings…


http://www.duiblog.com/
 
I've been saying this for such a long time now. We've demonized and emotionalized drunk driving so much, that we've excused all sorts of egregious behavior and punishments. Now it's fundraising, plain and simple. It's easy bucks and gets people into the police data base; that's what they want. It's out of hand, completely unrealistic punishments.
 
I've been saying this for such a long time now. We've demonized and emotionalized drunk driving so much, that we've excused all sorts of egregious behavior and punishments. Now it's fundraising, plain and simple. It's easy bucks and gets people into the police data base; that's what they want. It's out of hand, completely unrealistic punishments.

I take it nobody you know has been killed by a drunk driver.
 
I take it nobody you know has been killed by a drunk driver.

You are more than 57x more likely to die in a HOSPITAL by a mistake and/or infection than get killed by a intoxicated driver.
So your question should be how people you know have died VIA malpractice / infection in a hospital. I challenge anyone here on DUI statistics of any kind. DUIs are much more an industry than protection for citizens.
 
I take it nobody you know has been killed by a drunk driver.

I know people who were almost killed by drunk driving and still agree with Ikari, but if strawmen like the above is all you have to "address" the post with....
 
As I’ve said in previous posts, drunk driving has become a cash cow for local governments starving for revenue. See DUI: Government’s Cash Cow, How to Make a Million in the DUI Business and What if the Cash Cow Goes Dry?. This has lead to such things as putting pressure on cops with DUI arrest quotas. See Do Police Have Quotas?, "Yes, We Have No Quotas" and "Inside Edition" Documents DUI Quotas Across the US. The hunger of municipalities for money might also influence some judges in their rulings…


http://www.duiblog.com/

Can't you just not drive drunk, Green Noodle? If you need help, join AA. If someone you know needs AA, drive them there. It's really pretty simple.
 
Last week:
YORKVILLE, Ill. — A judge has sentenced an Illinois woman to 15 years in prison for causing the deaths of five teens in a 2007 alcohol-related car crash.
(BA was .10, btw.)

Another one:

August 4, 2010 - A young woman will spend the next 6 years of her life in jail because she chose to drive under the influence of drugs. According to a report at the Daily Herald, the 26-year-old woman received a 6-year jail sentence on Tuesday after she pleaded guilty to aggravated DUI. The charges stem from a car accident in early July 2009. The 26-year-old driver was driving a van on Cage Road when she crossed into oncoming traffic and hit a man riding a motorcycle. The motorcyclist, a 49-year-old man from McHenry, was killed. Testing showed that the woman was under the influence of both heroin and Xanax at the time of the crash.

I could fill up the board's bandwidth with the exact same kinds of vehicular homocides resulting from driving drunk. Get over it. Drive sober.
 
Can't you just not drive drunk, Green Noodle? If you need help, join AA. If someone you know needs AA, drive them there. It's really pretty simple.

The point isn't about driving drunk or not driving drunk, but the laws, how far they go or not go.
 
The point isn't about driving drunk or not driving drunk, but the laws, how far they go or not go.

What's the problem? BAC over the limit? DWI. BAC slightly under the limit but driving irratically, prolly a DUI. No, nobody would argue if somebody killed somebody as in my links. But why on earth would we want to wait 'til that happens?

Green Noodle!! How would you revise the laws? Let's hear solutions instead of bitchin'.
 
What's the problem? BAC over the limit? DWI. BAC slightly under the limit but driving irratically, prolly a DUI. No, nobody would argue if somebody killed somebody as in my links. But why on earth would we want to wait 'til that happens?

Green Noodle!! How would you revise the laws? Let's hear solutions instead of bitchin'.

Green Noodle??? :confused:
 
I take it nobody you know has been killed by a drunk driver.

My best friend in the world died on my birthday due to drinking and driving. Emotionalized retorts, however, do not make for good argument. As much as I loved Ben and the time we were able to be friends; his death does not change reality. And it is reality that we must deal with, not emotionalized argument.
 
Last week:
(BA was .10, btw.)

Another one:



I could fill up the board's bandwidth with the exact same kinds of vehicular homocides resulting from driving drunk. Get over it. Drive sober.

People die all the time, for a lot of reasons. There are a lot of cars, and there are a lot of people who drink. What you have are instances where drunk driving has led to fatalities. What you don't have is the number of instances in which drunk driving has not had any ill effects. There are dangers from many things. Guns are dangerous tools, and having them as legal property in a society means that there will be gun crime. There are people who die everyday due to gun crime. I could fill up the board's bandwidth with examples of this. Do we get rid of guns? No, we accept the reality of the situation. That free is not safe and that because we are free there will be some **** that goes down.

While alcohol and cars are legal, there will be deaths resulting from drinking and driving. Get over it.
 
But why on earth would we want to wait 'til that happens?

Because that is a consequence of the system we've constructed. We don't have a proactive government. Government doesn't take our guns, or take our speech. What about the school shootings? What about inciting to riot? I mean, why should we wait for these things to happen? Because that's ****ing life, that's why. Because that's the reality of the system of limited government we have created.
 
People die all the time, for a lot of reasons. There are a lot of cars, and there are a lot of people who drink. What you have are instances where drunk driving has led to fatalities. What you don't have is the number of instances in which drunk driving has not had any ill effects. There are dangers from many things. Guns are dangerous tools, and having them as legal property in a society means that there will be gun crime. There are people who die everyday due to gun crime. I could fill up the board's bandwidth with examples of this. Do we get rid of guns? No, we accept the reality of the situation. That free is not safe and that because we are free there will be some **** that goes down. While alcohol and cars are legal, there will be deaths resulting from drinking and driving. Get over it.

Yes drinking is legal. Driving is legal. Driving with a BAC over a certain number is NOT legal. Take your ticket like a man or don't drink and drive. Get over it yourself.
 
Because that is a consequence of the system we've constructed. We don't have a proactive government. Government doesn't take our guns, or take our speech. What about the school shootings? What about inciting to riot? I mean, why should we wait for these things to happen? Because that's ****ing life, that's why. Because that's the reality of the system of limited government we have created.

Ikari, you post some great things on this board. This isnt' one of them. It makes absolutely no sense.
 
You are more than 57x more likely to die in a HOSPITAL by a mistake and/or infection than get killed by a intoxicated driver.
So your question should be how people you know have died VIA malpractice / infection in a hospital. I challenge anyone here on DUI statistics of any kind. DUIs are much more an industry than protection for citizens.

And you have been informed in the past that your silly statistics like this one that you bring up have no bearing on the topic of discussion.

Malpractice is an unintentional accidental death that does not involve criminal negligence. It does not involved the conscious decision to knowingly put lives at risk for selfish reasons.
 
Because that is a consequence of the system we've constructed. We don't have a proactive government. Government doesn't take our guns, or take our speech. What about the school shootings? What about inciting to riot? I mean, why should we wait for these things to happen? Because that's ****ing life, that's why. Because that's the reality of the system of limited government we have created.

I disagree. Its much too easy to get away with DWI if we wait until AFTER someone crashes.

The hardest DWI to prove in court is the one that occurrs when an officer shows up 5-20 minutes after the crash has already occurred.

We must prosecute these people before hand. I am all about proactive traffic enforcment. In fact, that is what traffic enforcement is based upon, proactive enforcement of laws that could constitute as a safety hazard for the motoring public, and for which these actions have been known to be the key cause of crashes causing at a minimum property damage, often physical injury to one or more parties, and sometimes death.
 
Yes drinking is legal. Driving is legal. Driving with a BAC over a certain number is NOT legal. Take your ticket like a man or don't drink and drive. Get over it yourself.

I don't say that you don't get a ticket. I say that the ticket must be within some reasonable context of law and punishment. As well as noting that because we have these things as legal, they will happen. Drunk driving may not be legal. But so long as alcohol and driving both remain legal, you're going to get people who drink and drive; that number will never be pushed to zero. Because of the way we've set up our system of restricted government, people are going to be free to make choices for themselves, even the wrong choices. And given enough people, all those wrong choices will be realized in a real system. That's the base. You can't make it a zero number, not with horrible abuses of government and even then it may not get to zero. That's reality. We have chosen many dangerous abilities and realities of the world and society we live in, this is one of those. There will always be drunk driving. But just because the worst case scenario of drunk driving can be horrible doesn't mean that we excuse excessive punishment for the crime. Everything must exist within the limited construct of government and proper punishment.
 
I disagree. Its much too easy to get away with DWI if we wait until AFTER someone crashes.

The hardest DWI to prove in court is the one that occurrs when an officer shows up 5-20 minutes after the crash has already occurred.

We must prosecute these people before hand. I am all about proactive traffic enforcment. In fact, that is what traffic enforcement is based upon, proactive enforcement of laws that could constitute as a safety hazard for the motoring public, and for which these actions have been known to be the key cause of crashes causing at a minimum property damage, often physical injury to one or more parties, and sometimes death.

So what is your proactive solution? Monitor bars? breathalyzer interlock on all cars? How do you punish drunk driving before drunk driving occurs? Is it even valid to punish a crime when a crime has not been committed?
 
You are more than 57x more likely to die in a HOSPITAL by a mistake and/or infection than get killed by a intoxicated driver.
So your question should be how people you know have died VIA malpractice / infection in a hospital. I challenge anyone here on DUI statistics of any kind. DUIs are much more an industry than protection for citizens.

I somewhat agree with the OP. I think that drunk driving laws are made somewhat arbitrarily. In Minnesota, I remember when the law went from .10 to .08, and essentially it was a matter of money. Federal funding would be held back if we didn't change the law and the state would would benefit from the increased revenues from fines.

However, I don't know where you're getting your statistics from. Just under 12,000 deaths were attributed to drinking and driving in 2008. 57 times 12,000 is 684,000, which is higher than the number of people who died from heart disease (the leading cause of death) that same year. I'm not sure how many of those 12,000 were the drunk drivers, but even if 80% of the fatalities were the drunk drivers, that would be 2,000, and 2,000 times 57 is 114,000 which is roughly equivalent to the number of all accidental deaths per year in the US -- the vast majority of which occur outside of hospitals. My statistics came from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, all for 2008.
 
Last edited:
Ikari, you post some great things on this board. This isnt' one of them. It makes absolutely no sense.

Of course it makes sense. There are many things which taken to the extreme can cause many negative side effects. But we don't take away that which can cause the negative side effects. We punish individuals who choose to act out in a way which causes those negative side effects. You can't stop drunk driving in total, it will exist. But because it exists doesn't mean that we accept invasive techniques and excessive punishments. You can't punish someone for drunk driving who has not driven drunk. You wanted to know as to why we have to wait for the crime to occur before we can do anything, and that's because that's all we can do. The government is reactive. Drunk driving may be illegal, but it's never going to be a zero number. It's an artifact of our current societal constructs. And you cannot punish people for drunk driving before they have driven drunk. And you cannot excuse enforcement and punishment which tries to do just that. We wait till the act occurs.
 
So what is your proactive solution? Monitor bars? breathalyzer interlock on all cars? How do you punish drunk driving before drunk driving occurs? Is it even valid to punish a crime when a crime has not been committed?

The "proactive" element is applied to mean that we are making and enforcing traffic safety laws in order to PREVENT crashes caused by these behaviors.
You know, like stopping someone for speeding and citing them BEFORE a crash has occurred.
A crash is not a crime. The unsafe driving behaviors that CAUSED the crash have been made crimes.
Same applies to DWI. We find drunk drivers and charge them BEFORE a crash occurs. This is a method of discouraging people from committing these acts, and thus increasing the safety of our roadways.

Im failing to see how you don't understand this. Its pretty much common sense.
 
Of course it makes sense. There are many things which taken to the extreme can cause many negative side effects. But we don't take away that which can cause the negative side effects. We punish individuals who choose to act out in a way which causes those negative side effects. You can't stop drunk driving in total, it will exist. But because it exists doesn't mean that we accept invasive techniques and excessive punishments. You can't punish someone for drunk driving who has not driven drunk. You wanted to know as to why we have to wait for the crime to occur before we can do anything, and that's because that's all we can do. The government is reactive. Drunk driving may be illegal, but it's never going to be a zero number. It's an artifact of our current societal constructs. And you cannot punish people for drunk driving before they have driven drunk. And you cannot excuse enforcement and punishment which tries to do just that. We wait till the act occurs.

Ahh, I see. It isn't common sense your lacking. Its a breakdown in communication between your arguments, and what myself and Maggie have been talking about.

We both, through your own words, thought you were referring to not doing anything unless someone crashes.
 
As I’ve said in previous posts, drunk driving has become a cash cow for local governments starving for revenue. See DUI: Government’s Cash Cow, How to Make a Million in the DUI Business and What if the Cash Cow Goes Dry?. This has lead to such things as putting pressure on cops with DUI arrest quotas. See Do Police Have Quotas?, "Yes, We Have No Quotas" and "Inside Edition" Documents DUI Quotas Across the US. The hunger of municipalities for money might also influence some judges in their rulings…


DUI BLOG : Bad Drunk Driving Laws, False Evidence and a Fading Constitution

DUI quotas - yeah, sure, that's not a big stretch fo the imagination.
They have speeding ticket quotas, too, you know.

I've been saying this for such a long time now. We've demonized and emotionalized drunk driving so much, that we've excused all sorts of egregious behavior and punishments. Now it's fundraising, plain and simple. It's easy bucks and gets people into the police data base; that's what they want. It's out of hand, completely unrealistic punishments.

Oh - right, like there's nothing wrong with driving drunk? How has that led to 'being soft' on other things? I'm not seeing the connection.

It's not hard to avoid the DUI cash-cow trap as a motorist - don't be *under the influence* of anything when you drive . . . that's common sense right there.

I'm not really feeling the sympathy for tipsy vroom vroomers over here I guess.
 
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