Read all about it. Constitutional rights aberogated in pursuit of “safety”.
Something about that article strikes me as having been written by someone not terribly reliable.
Yes, it expresses a particular point-of-view, and opens with some (slight, to me) hyperbole, but I sure can’t find any fault with any of it. To me, MADD is one of the most obnoxious groups currently active in North America, nothing more than modern bluestockings who have gotten the law on their side. The group has turned the laws on drunk driving into a social crusade, and given the police incredible powers to stop us on demand and void the rights that we have in every other situation where we might be in violation of the law. Suspected child molesters and murderers have more rights.
Here in Ontario, for instance:
–Your car is seized as soon as you blow over .08. No recourse to the law, no lawyers, etc.
–Your license is supsended for 90 days immediately. No recourse to the law, no lawyers, etc.
–If convicted, you lose your license for a year.
–And to get it back, you have to take alcohol education classes, at your cost of around $500-600.
–Then you have to install a breath device in your car for one year, at your cost of about $1,000-1,500, and blow into it to start the ignition and then randomly whenever the thing beeps at you.
Amazing. And all of the above is for a single offense. In total, a single impaired driving conviction is now estimated to cost a one-time offender between $10,000-15,000. Insurance rates might make it impossible for that offender to drive again, too, and of course, there is a good possibility that nobody will insure you at all after such a conviction. And a fair number of people find themselves without jobs after such a conviction as well.
I’m all for throwing the book at repeat offenders, and find drunk driving to be a serious crime, but this is sheer madness. Most people got the message that drunk driving was wrong back in the 1980s, and the only ones still out there driving impaired are the serious problem drinkers, who you aren’t going to reach with threat of greater penalties anyhow. The penalty and social stigma involved now go way beyond sensibility. It’d be preferable to be nailed for doing 100 miles an hour in a school zone, than to fail a roadside breath test in the middle of nowhere at 2am in Ontario.
And that’s all thanks to the work of MADD, which incidentally, has often talked in the past couple of years about dropping the blood-alchohol level lower than .08. Group execs here in Canada say the goal is 0.0. So, folks, watch out for that cough syrup if you’re planning to get behind the wheel!
Anyway, even this isn’t enough for MADD in Canada. Just before Christmas, a MADD study was released showing that around 50% of convicted impaired drivers in Ontario don’t get their licenses renewed when their suspensions end. Evidence that the penalties are too harsh? That these people can’t afford insurance?
Nah, it’s obviously drunk scumbags driving without licenses! So the police are now being pressured here to put further heat on people with impaired driving convictions. MADD here is actually now demanding that the current penalties be increased and that some sort of surveillance system should be initiated on impaired drivers once they become eligible to regain their licenses.
Again, amazing.
What Brent said.
I’ve gotta say it, DUI is one of my pet peeves for personal reasons. While I am very protective of the “right to drive” (I hate that phrase) and rights to privacy in my car and such, I am just fine with once someone has a DUI conviction chopping off their fucking heads.
So I guess I’m hella anti-MADD before a conviction (preventative traffic stops and that kind of intrusive horseshit), but more extreme than MADD post-conviction. :)
The call is coming from inside the house !!!
Part of the problem, though, is…how useful is that conviction, when there are so many easy ways to get a conviction, the person can’t really defend themself, and may not have been actually impaired?
You do realize that fate now requires that the author of the DUI rights tirade to die in an accident with a drunk driver?
Don’t believe me?
Check this out: (Read them in order, note names)
http://www.dailynebraskan.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/09/17/414a5a030e91d?in_archive=1
http://journalstar.com/articles/2005/01/05/local/doc41db350078259784029686.txt
Thanks nanny-state liberals!
:roll:
it wasn’t a drunk driving incident was it? the cop said alcohol did not play a role. although the dead guy did advocate that people had a right to not be forced to wear seat belts and died while his two seat belt wearing companions did not. (although he was in the back seat, where most people don’t wear seat belts)
Zing!
Oh, and as an addition to Brent’s statement, you should see the vast number of military careers that are destroyed by DUI’s (and here I’m talking without having hurt anyone, and with standards for evidence that wouldn’t pass in a star chamber). I have friend who lost rank for blowing a .02 (!) and was nearly in really deep shit (fortunately they needed combat replacements) because the MP decided that after an hour and a half of hassling (3 consecutive field sobriety tests, etc) my friend’s “insolence” established impaired behavior. All the evidence he needed for his witchhunt to begin? He was parked in an unmarked fire lane with the engine running waiting for me to run in and grab some sodas from the supermarket.
I have no problem with setting a limit of, say, 1.0 percent BAC and using that. This is an area in which there is a clear and demonstrated danger to all of society, and in which the complete lack of real punishment has allowed the problem to continue to grow. If you blow into the meter or do a blood test and your shit is 1.0 BAC and you’re driving, fuck you and your lawyer too.
And if you are DUI and harm a person, well I personally have no problem with something like 20 years in the clink, zero parole. I used to advocate capital punishment for it (here on QT3) but a few compelling arguments were made. So I’ve softened my position slightly. Heheh.
it wasn’t a drunk driving incident was it? the cop said alcohol did not play a role. although the dead guy did advocate that people had a right to not be forced to wear seat belts and died while his two seat belt wearing companions did not. (although he was in the back seat, where most people don’t wear seat belts)[/quote]
Umm, you took that a bit more seriously than I’d intended. I was just pointing out that it was extremely ironic that a person who wrote a big public rant about the tyranny of seat belt laws should die shortly thereafter from an accident which wouldn’t have been fatal if he’d been wearing a seatbelt. I thought it really illustrates the whole rights-vs-safety tradeoff nicely.
It’s not irony, it’s conspiracy. He was obviously killed by a cabal of leftst agents influenced by [insert catchy name for Soros + Hollywood + oh I don’t know, North Korea]. That’s so obvious.
That’s not ironic. He knew it was more dangerous. Ironic would be a seatbelt activist trapped in a sinking vehicle and drowning.
It’s been shown that moderate sleep deprivation has a similar effect on safety as 0.08 BAC. If someone drives while proveably sleep deprived and hurts someone, would you advocate a similar penalty?
No. The cause is clearly different although the outcome is the same. I don’t equate “very tired person who is driving” with “person who drinks past a certain BAC and then drives”. I’d call the former negligent, the latter willing.
Doubly so with all the hype around drunk driving for the last 20 years. I mean there’s just no damn excuse.
I’m not sure what you mean by “the problem” that is continuing to grow, but if you mean U.S. alcohol-related traffic fatalities, this number has declined (using any number of statistics) over the last 20 years. (Sorry for the poor formatting)
…Traffic…Total
…Deaths…Traffic…Percent
Year…with Alc…Deaths…Alc Relat
1984…24762…44257…56%
2003…17013…42643…40%
The results are even more dramatic when adjusted for the increase in vehicle miles traveled between 1984 and 2003, since U.S. drivers travel more than they did in 1984.
…Veh Miles…Alc Related…Total
Year…Trav (bill)…Death/VMT…Death/VMT
1984…1720…14.4…25.7
2003…2880…5.9…14.8
Despite the “complete lack of real punishment,” drunks are killing fewer people now, both proportionally and in raw numbers. In addition, 69% of the time, the victim of an alcohol-related traffic fatality is the person imbibing alcohol (as a driver plowing one’s car into a wall, or a drunk stumbling across the road who is hit by a car). While I don’t wish death on anyone, I lose less sleep over an idiot that kills himself when impaired compared to one who kills a family and stumbles away unharmed.
Let’s be clear; innocent people are still killed and injured every year by drunk drivers. But the trend is encouraging, and we should continue to support initiatives that reduce the number even more. In my mind, there’s a problem with your suggestion that we “chop off [the] fucking heads” (a euphemism for lengthy jail terms, I hope?) of people convicted of DUIs/DWIs. Namely, the evidence is quite mixed as to whether harsh sanctions reduce the number of people who drink and drive. What does work? According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), certainty of sanctions seems to be more effective than severity. Actually, about half of the stuff listed in Brett’s post regarding Ontario law has good support. Immediate, non-negotiable administrative license suspension (not sure if the one year loss increases effectiveness over a shorter ban) and temporary vehicle seizure both are associated with reductions in drunk driving. There’s mixed support for education classes & ignition locks. Some of the “intrusive horseshit” you detest – sobriety checkpoints – is more reliably effective than harsh jail terms.
I support a system of laws and sanctions that protects the public and acts as a deterrent for future harmful behavior. I am not interested in fucking with people’s lives in order to “teach them a lesson,” primarily because we have 40 years of evidence in the behavioral sciences that demonstrate harsh punishment is one of the weaker methods to change long-term behavior.
Documents I used:
Alcohol and Highway Safety 2001: A Review of the State of Knowledge – by NHTSA. Ch. 5 was especially helpful.
Traffic Safety Facts 2003: Alcohol – by NHTSA. Adobe document.
Traffic Safety Facts 2003: Early Edition – NHTSA again. Ch. 1 used the most.
Not sure if this is a typo or not, but to put some of these numbers in perspective, that’s 2.5 times LD50. 0.10% BAC is 1/4 LD50.
Here in Ontario, for instance:
–Your car is seized as soon as you blow over .08. No recourse to the law, no lawyers, etc.
–Your license is supsended for 90 days immediately. No recourse to the law, no lawyers, etc.
–If convicted, you lose your license for a year.
–And to get it back, you have to take alcohol education classes, at your cost of around $500-600.
–Then you have to install a breath device in your car for one year, at your cost of about $1,000-1,500, and blow into it to start the ignition and then randomly whenever the thing beeps at you.
Amazing. And all of the above is for a single offense. In total, a single impaired driving conviction is now estimated to cost a one-time offender between $10,000-15,000. Insurance rates might make it impossible for that offender to drive again, too, and of course, there is a good possibility that nobody will insure you at all after such a conviction. And a fair number of people find themselves without jobs after such a conviction as well.
Yikes, that’s strict! Blowing a .08 is nothing, too. It doesn’t take a lot of drinking to get to that alcohol level.
One thing though – do the courts give probation to first-time offenders and let them avoid this draconian punishment?