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I remain of the opinion that we should be aiming for public transport that is a preferable replacement to a car if all you're moving is your body, and then making a drivers licence a vocational licence, like forklift licences are. From there, it's totally practical to make the answer to this question "once". I'm not a fan of breathalyser-immobiliser devices, because there are inevitably going to be times when driving drunk is the lesser of two evils. People who live in areas prone to doing this:  will sympathise with me when I say that sometimes, no matter what your BAC is, you've gotta drive.
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Oct 9, 2014 16:25
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 21:11 |
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jivjov posted:The presence or absence of public transit really has no bearing on "how harshly should people with DUIs get punished". Without adequate public transport, it can be impossible to be employed. "must have valid drivers licence" is a pretty common job pre-req in areas without good PT, and banning someone from driving could be destroying their career. Punishment is not the goal. I don't care if DUI's feel bad about themselves or not, I just don't want them driving while drunk. To achieve that, we have to critically analyze what is causing DUI to be a problem, and solve those issues. Once they are solved, DUI becomes a non-issue. Accepting that people are bad at planning and often get drunk when they shouldn't, and that raging about it and punishing people for it won't make our fallible grey matter start working better, here are some reasons people sometimes then choose to drive even though they know they shouldn't: 1. There is no other way to get home 2. There is no other affordable way to get home 3. They need their car the next day, and can't leave it in the city 4. It is forbidden to leave your car in the city. 5. They don't realise how drunk they are. Here are some potential solutions: 1 & 2. Have a high availability, low cost public transport system that can get people home. (Our PT used to have "roam zones" where in low housing density areas on the outskirts of the city, the bus route became loosely defined and at your request it would drop you off at your house and then go back to the route). 3 & 4. Subsidized Rent-a-Driver service, guy brings a little fold-up motorbike with him, drives you and your car home, bikes back to the city, does the same for someone else. 5. Sponsor a campaign to get free snacks from the bar if you bretho on the way out. You know what's not going to solve these issues? Yelling at people. SA recently instigated "new rules to protect P platers" (P platers are new drivers, allowed to drive on their own but still inexperienced). One of the rules is "p platers cannot drive after midnight". A friend of mine (who was on their P's) was over at my place, we lost track of time and they had to go home after midnight. They had work the next day, and work required the car, so they couldn't leave it at mine. After a brief consultation, we decided that the best thing to do would be break a second law by not putting the P plates on the car. There was no choice about not going to work, or they'd have lost their job (minimum wage, casual position, very replaceable). The penalty (loss of licence) was the same whether they broke one law or two, so why put a big red "arrest me" flag on the back of the car? These issues that drive people to DUI will continue driving people to DUI no matter the penalty. Stamping down harder will result in evasive behavior, because you're putting people between a rock and a hard place. Removing the rock is the solution.
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Oct 11, 2014 03:11
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David Corbett posted:Unless your transit system is really, really safe, I can't imagine it would turn out well for quite a few people - particularly drunk women. (While the correct solution to this problem would be a safer transit system, in practice taxis might make more sense.) If only it weren't completely impossible to have a safe transit system. If only our society had the foresight to institute a profession whose job was to protect others! Oh well, I guess there's no help for it, the current situation really is for the best. Debate over everyone!
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Oct 11, 2014 07:11
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We might have to fire some people...
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Oct 11, 2014 07:33
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Amused to Death posted:tl;dr you're all loving terrible drivers and break the law constantly. Sincerely, a cyclist. 
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Oct 12, 2014 02:14
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on the left posted:Doesn't this always backfire horribly when people compete for the high score? 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. A big part of "just over the limit" drink driving is derived from the fact that people don't have built in breathalysers, and often can't tell the difference between "a bit buzzed" and "not capable of driving". They don't think drunk driving is ok, and wouldn't knowingly drunk drive, but they don't know they are drunk. Not all of us drink regularly enough to know our own impairment levels. Give people an easy, free way to tell how drunk they are, wherever they are, and the sensible-but-oblivious demographic will be solved, and that's probably 20-25% of drunk drivers.
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Oct 12, 2014 02:24
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on the left posted:It's not a good solution for a couple of reasons: 1) I specifically argued that this isn't aimed at reckless drinkers, it's aimed at casual/social drinkers. Got a link showing it pushes normal drinkers into reckless drinkers? 2) Not relevant to argument 3) Location specific, not relevant to argument
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Oct 12, 2014 03:28
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crabcakes66 posted:Is this the thread where we craft our arguments around not being able to control everything and so we shouldn't even bother trying to control anything or punish bad behavior? I love that thread. The point of my argument is we totally can control things, but screaming at people who do the wrong thing and taking their licenses away actually won't solve the problem, and is thus the wrong thing to spend effort trying to control. People will actually keep driving without licenses, because it's super-hard to police and driving is mandatory in our society.
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Oct 12, 2014 04:59
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Captain Mog posted:Scaring people is an effective deterrent and always has been. You're right of course, that's why DUI's never happen these days and this discussion is hypothetical. Oh wait, it's not, are you an idiot?
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Oct 13, 2014 21:59
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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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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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