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Sir_Substance posted:You're missing the point. The fratboys are going to compete for a high score, yes. But the people who walk out the door thinking "I'm fine, borderline at best" will get evidence that they aren't fine, and reconsider. I think they will prevent some people from driving, but give false comfort to many others. There are several problems with breath testers. One is that anything that a normal person would pay for is basically worthless. Further, the accurate ones are precision devices that need frequent calibration -- at least monthly, probably more depending on where they are kept. Note that the devices often fail in a way that causes them to read low. The other problem is that just because you blow .04 when you leave the bar doesn't mean you're .04 when get home. Most people will have a drink within 15-20 minutes of leaving a bar. The problem is that that alcohol will take 45-90 minutes to absorb in the body. So you test 15 minutes after drinking, leave the bar and drive home, 30 minutes away. You could, especially if that drink is strong or your are small, blow .04 at the bar, then blow .08 (or more) when you are home. The next problem is that some people are not safe to drive at .07. If they feel buzzed, but think "hey machine says I'm fine" they may drive when they otherwise would have called a cab or a friend. As for the original question, it is kind of an interesting one. The problem is that .08 is at the same time too high and too low. It is too high in that some people are impaired below .08. Impairment starts for some people as soon as .05. However, for many people .08 is too low -- too impaired for driving may fall higher. The problem is that the "legal limit" is supposed to be a limit at which no one is safe to drive, which is why it is a quasi-strict liability law. For those impaired below that limit basically everywhere has a parallel law that prohibits driving impaired. Drug DUIs are even weirder. I would support a law that made a low level DUI, such as .05-.10 punishable as traffic infractions with a fine, no jail possibility, no license/insurance consequences, and a mandatory ride home by cab/friend. After 3 such offenses in 1 year, you might want to make the last one count as a "real" DUI. Above that BAC you would get a "real" DUI. I think, I at least in CA, the 1st DUI punishment is fairly reasonable. 3 years probation, $2000 fine (can be done as community service), 2 days jail (which you probably got when arrested), 6 month license suspension (with exceptions from to/from work), and a ban from driving with >.01 for 3 years. The fact is that the vast majority of 1st DUIs will never do it again. It is the 2nd and 3rd DUI people you need to worry about. I would say if within 10 years you get: 1 DUI -- 6 month license suspension with exception for certain necessary driving and a 3 year ban from driving and driving at all 2 DUI -- 3 year suspension with a possibility to get a restricted license with an IID install and a 10 year drinking and driving ban. 3 DUI -- 5 year suspension with a possibility to get a restricted license with an IID install and proof of some on on-going treatment and a lifetime drinking and driving ban 4th DUI at any time -- ban. Ability to apply for a license after 5 years after a showing of treatment and a an extended period of sobriety. If you get another DUI, ever, ban with no ability to re-apply. Kaal posted:Drinking-related crashes are really just the tip of the iceberg, there are five other common (indeed MORE common) driving behaviors that cause unnecessary crashes and fatalities:
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# ? Oct 19, 2014 04:37 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 23:31 |
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Toasticle posted:Serious question: How would that jive with drunk women being unable to consent to sex? If she goes to a bar, gets shitfaced and has sex and of course Im not talking about situations where she doesn't want to or any kind of force, but many states and people think even if she is saying yes and giving the "Yes I want to gently caress" signals it is still rape because she was unable to consent. But there are people for whom alcohol puts their sex drive on overdrive, make and female. This is mostly a false dichotomy. You are responsible for things you do, not for things that are done to you. I've never heard of a twice as drunk man being charged with raping a drunk woman when both seemed consenting. That sounds like an MRA line. Most everyone maintains that neither party can consent at that point.
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# ? Oct 19, 2014 17:53 |
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Nevvy Z posted:This is mostly a false dichotomy. You are responsible for things you do, not for things that are done to you. I've never heard of a twice as drunk man being charged with raping a drunk woman when both seemed consenting. That sounds like an MRA line. Most everyone maintains that neither party can consent at that point. It's one of those things that sounds really super believable, and why would anyone lie about that, so you can't help but empathize with them yourself and feel outraged. I used to do this all the time myself until I realized that the kinds of people who rape women are also the kinds of people who would make up stories pushing the blame if they ever got caught raping a woman. It's like people who claim that they ended up on sex offender's watchlists because they got caught pissing in public. No, they ended up on the watchlist because they were showing their penis to kids on a train, they told you they got caught pissing in public so you wouldn't immediately write them off for being awful people. quote:As for the original question, it is kind of an interesting one. The problem is that .08 is at the same time too high and too low. It is too high in that some people are impaired below .08. Impairment starts for some people as soon as .05. However, for many people .08 is too low -- too impaired for driving may fall higher. The problem is that the "legal limit" is supposed to be a limit at which no one is safe to drive, which is why it is a quasi-strict liability law. For those impaired below that limit basically everywhere has a parallel law that prohibits driving impaired. Which is exactly why DUI laws aren't strict enough to begin with, because they operate on an assumption that it's ever okay to drive at any level of intoxication. It would be like writing a gun control legislation that only counts after the third gun you buy, operating on the pure assumption that everyone owns the first two guns and knows how to use the first two guns and plans to use the first two guns the same way. I mean, those assumptions the law makes are awful dumb but what was the point of the law to begin with if it only kicks in when the stockpile starts? If it's illegal to drive while intoxicated, it should just be illegal. Don't put an arbitrary marker in for when you're "just intoxicated enough" to not be able to drive anymore. Mirthless fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Oct 19, 2014 |
# ? Oct 19, 2014 20:46 |
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Comedy option: after your second DUI, you are only allowed to drive scooters/mopeds.
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# ? Oct 19, 2014 20:54 |
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Mirthless posted:Which is exactly why DUI laws aren't strict enough to begin with, because they operate on an assumption that it's ever okay to drive at any level of intoxication. It would be like writing a gun control legislation that only counts after the third gun you buy, operating on the pure assumption that everyone owns the first two guns and knows how to use the first two guns and plans to use the first two guns the same way. I mean, those assumptions the law makes are awful dumb but what was the point of the law to begin with if it only kicks in when the stockpile starts? If it's illegal to drive while intoxicated, it should just be illegal. Don't put an arbitrary marker in for when you're "just intoxicated enough" to not be able to drive anymore. No tolerance. We must stamp out the scourge of Catholics getting behind the wheel after a sip of communion wine.
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# ? Oct 19, 2014 22:03 |
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VitalSigns posted:No tolerance. We must stamp out the scourge of Catholics getting behind the wheel after a sip of communion wine. Yes, because a sip of communion wine at 11:30 AM on Sunday Morning is the same thing as getting pulled over at 11:30 PM on Friday Night when you've had a couple of beers in you. Drinking is a purely voluntary practice. You can volunteer not to drink if you want to drive. If you're catholic and a cop wants to get on you for .01 on your bac I guess you can take them to court and fight it out on religious grounds? But no, I agree, you're right: We should keep DUI laws exactly where they are, with the huge, unacceptable body count associated with them, purely to cater to a subsect of a specific religious group. If a few vans full of toddlers need to be t-boned to keep your twice-yearly sip of sacramental wine, so be it. Mirthless fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Oct 19, 2014 |
# ? Oct 19, 2014 22:08 |
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nm posted:There are several problems with breath testers. One is that anything that a normal person would pay for is basically worthless. Further, the accurate ones are precision devices that need frequent calibration -- at least monthly, probably more depending on where they are kept. The whole argument was for them to be installed at a bar. You're right, purchasing a proper one and maintaining it once a month is totally impossible, what was I thinking?
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# ? Oct 19, 2014 22:12 |
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Mirthless posted:Drinking is a purely voluntary practice. You can volunteer not to drink if you want to drive. If you're catholic and a cop wants to get on you for .01 on your bac I guess you can take them to court and fight it out on religious grounds? Or we could go off of impairment, since there are other substances that impair your ability to drive rather than putting people away who have barely detectable amounts of alcohol in their blood.
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# ? Oct 19, 2014 22:16 |
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The only good zero tolerance policy is my zero tolerance policy.
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# ? Oct 19, 2014 22:29 |
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VitalSigns posted:Or we could go off of impairment, since there are other substances that impair your ability to drive rather than putting people away who have barely detectable amounts of alcohol in their blood. But how do you measure impairment? Who decides what impaired is? And how impaired is too impaired? Wouldn't basing laws on impairment open the door to the "Well, I know my limits, officer, and I was not impaired." defense in court every time a drunk rams into an ambulance? Going off BAC is a foolproof method to say, "Hey, you drank recreationally and then got behind the wheel, that is a thing you are not supposed to do." Shrink that number in .03 to account for mouthwash and communion wine and then stick to the rhetoric that "one beer is enough to be significantly impaired". The taxicab lobbies would overjoyed and maybe people would stop thinking stupid poo poo like "I know how many beers I can drink without being impaired". The number is 0. Take a bus or drink at home. Shbobdb posted:The only good zero tolerance policy is my zero tolerance policy. People who would be hurt: 1. Alcohol Producers 2. People who drink and drive or drive immediately after drinking 3. Auto Body Shops Mirthless fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Oct 19, 2014 |
# ? Oct 19, 2014 22:43 |
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You know what's really worked as a deterrent in the past? Threat of punishment. That's why the prisons are all empty.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 02:22 |
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Mirthless posted:Which is exactly why DUI laws aren't strict enough to begin with, because they operate on an assumption that it's ever okay to drive at any level of intoxication. It would be like writing a gun control legislation that only counts after the third gun you buy, operating on the pure assumption that everyone owns the first two guns and knows how to use the first two guns and plans to use the first two guns the same way. I mean, those assumptions the law makes are awful dumb but what was the point of the law to begin with if it only kicks in when the stockpile starts? If it's illegal to drive while intoxicated, it should just be illegal. Don't put an arbitrary marker in for when you're "just intoxicated enough" to not be able to drive anymore. Edit: I see you want to get rid of the line. At least in the US, this isn't going to work. There is already a tolerance for buzzed driving in the US because so many people do it. You get it down to a level where 90% of the drinking public is driving illegally and you'll see a wholesale rejection of DUI laws, probably even by the police. I have watched countless stops of people with <.10 BACs and unless they also have drugs in their system, their driving has never been terrifying. Mirthless posted:But how do you measure impairment? Who decides what impaired is? And how impaired is too impaired? Wouldn't basing laws on impairment open the door to the "Well, I know my limits, officer, and I was not impaired." defense in court every time a drunk rams into an ambulance? Sir_Substance posted:The whole argument was for them to be installed at a bar. You're right, purchasing a proper one and maintaining it once a month is totally impossible, what was I thinking? More importantly, installing at a bar promotes the rising problem. Also, if it malfunctions and there is an accident, it will probably cause even greater liability to the bar, depending on local dram shop laws. nm fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Oct 20, 2014 |
# ? Oct 20, 2014 03:04 |
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I used to work in a bar that decided they'd get all responsible since we were in a university district and install a breathalyzer as suggested here so often. It actually wound up being great for sales but we took it down after a couple weeks anyway; what happened was that people started using it to "prove" how drunk they were and start "contests" and frankly if we had kept it up longer someone would have died from alcohol poisoning, we'd already seen a few .35's "inspired" by the thing. Babby Formed fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Oct 20, 2014 |
# ? Oct 20, 2014 06:29 |
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This thread really does drive home how many goons are city dwellers. The assumption that cabs are common or that public transit would ever be feasible is pretty laughable in a lot of the United States.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 07:00 |
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Barlow posted:This thread really does drive home how many goons are city dwellers. The assumption that cabs are common or that public transit would ever be feasible is pretty laughable in a lot of the United States. Public transit would be feasible if we had better zoning laws at the local level; until then, the suburbs can die from their drunk drivers while those with access to city services or a local bar have the pleasure of avoiding DDing assholes.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 07:03 |
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Babby Formed posted:I used to work in a bar that decided they'd get all responsible since we were in a university district and install a breathalyzer as suggested here so often. I know this might seem like a bandaid solution, but why was this bar selling booze to people blowing .35? I'm not sure that's even legal in Australia. I'm pretty sure there's some mandatory cutoff/duty of care thing somewhere it's illegal to sell alcohol to someone who is visibly drunk. Part of getting your RSA, I'm sure. Maybe your bar was loving stupid?
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 09:05 |
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Sir_Substance posted:I know this might seem like a bandaid solution, but why was this bar selling booze to people blowing .35? We weren't selling to people blowing .35, we'd cut them off when they blew something nuts like that. (If we saw it which was another real mess of worms, it wasn't constantly overseen or anything.) People would order extra shots in advance with the stated intent of seeing who could blow the highest, come in "pregamed" from the bar next door when we tried cracking down on that so they could look like they were drinking less when they tried to blow it... whole thing got really stupid really fast. EDIT: In the name of constructiveness, if one of these came out that did the whole las vegas jackpot thing whenever someone blew above .2 so we could call a cab and cut them off, and took a picture in case they tried to duck the cutoff that'd probably make these useful; but I'm going to bet that all the ones for bars that are made continue to be basically paid bar games you put a buck in the machine to totally not play a drinking game with. Babby Formed fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Oct 20, 2014 |
# ? Oct 20, 2014 09:27 |
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Barlow posted:This thread really does drive home how many goons are city dwellers. The assumption that cabs are common or that public transit would ever be feasible is pretty laughable in a lot of the United States. Public transit is feasible everywhere, and drunk shuttles even more so. Any spread-out area that spends money on emergency services would save money by running shuttles, even if they had to make 20 mile trips.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 16:42 |
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Volcott posted:A one strike you're out policy just doesn't seem realistic to me. How difficult is it to make arrangements to sleep at whatever party you get drunk at (if in a rural community), or call a cab/ride public transit (in the city)? If you can't afford to do either, you probably shouldn't be drinking to begin with.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 16:47 |
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Wade Wilson posted:How difficult is it to make arrangements to sleep at whatever party you get drunk at (if in a rural community), or call a cab/ride public transit (in the city)?
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 16:53 |
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Wade Wilson posted:If you can't afford to do either, you probably shouldn't be drinking to begin with. So prohibition, but only for the poor.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 17:23 |
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DARPA posted:So prohibition, but only for the poor. Also known as prohibition.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 17:27 |
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It's hardly impossible to drink in places where you can stay over or arrange a ride, even if you're poor and rural. I can't imagine anyone, especially in a rural area, not letting someone sleep it off on a couch or a soft bit of floor. I used to live in a rural area, and it was pretty standard to let people stay the night if they were drunk so they didn't end up driving off a cliff in the middle of the night (of course, there was also a lot of drunk driving even so). Or, if you lived close enough, you could walk home. This won't work in super-rural areas, admittedly.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 17:27 |
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Barlow posted:This thread really does drive home how many goons are city dwellers. The assumption that cabs are common or that public transit would ever be feasible is pretty laughable in a lot of the United States. It's more like goons are evenly represented among the 80% of responsible drinkers and the 20% of irresponsible drinkers, where the former simply don't understand why their proposals aren't going to change the behavior of the latter.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 17:35 |
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DARPA posted:So prohibition, but only for the poor. No. More along the lines of "stop making stupid decisions" or "Plan to get wasted when you also have a place to sleep it off" and not "Get wasted, attempt to drive self home" because that is beyond moronic. EDIT: We've had "Drink Responsibly" campaigns for decades, where (outside of ads for specific products) the emphasis is on having a Designated Driver or a nearby friend's place you can crash at without having to drive there. It should be at the point of near-instinctual conditioning by now, kind of like the "look both ways before crossing the street" types of conditioning we're all put through as kids. Some Pinko Commie fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Oct 20, 2014 |
# ? Oct 20, 2014 18:58 |
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Death penalty for everything, one strike. It's a choice to break the law, so just don't do it.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 19:09 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 23:31 |
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Wade Wilson posted:No. More along the lines of "stop making stupid decisions" or "Plan to get wasted when you also have a place to sleep it off" and not "Get wasted, attempt to drive self home" because that is beyond moronic. quote:EDIT: We've had "Drink Responsibly" campaigns for decades, where (outside of ads for specific products) the emphasis is on having a Designated Driver or a nearby friend's place you can crash at without having to drive there. It should be at the point of near-instinctual conditioning by now, kind of like the "look both ways before crossing the street" types of conditioning we're all put through as kids. What does "nearby" mean to you? half a mile? two miles? ten miles? Sad how so many people can't appreciate just how sparse most of America is. A DD making a two hour loop to drop off a car full of people who each had four beers during a Monday night football game just isn't ever going to happen, no matter how livelihood destroying your make the prospect of losing a license for blowing a .08.
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# ? Oct 20, 2014 19:28 |