New DUI standard
So, back in high school, that was when MADD and SADD started pushing for DUI laws. And, it seemed, it was a noble purpose. This was back before those sorts of groups became ran by neo-prohibitionist busy bodies. The legal limit for blood alcohol was 0.1 or some such. Then, they changed it to 0.08. Now, they want to make it 0.05. Just random numbers, honestly. The new limit won’t do anything but result in the arrests of otherwise law-abiding. I have an idea, let’s make it illegal to kill people with your car. Novel, eh?
May 15th, 2013 at 9:47 pm
Here’s a revolutionary idea, just enforce a reckless driving law. It can cover everything from drunk driving to texting to just plain weaving through traffic. Then we need not worry if someone has .04 or .05 or 2.4 BAC, because all that matters is how they were driving. If they are going the posted speed limit (or preferably with the flow of traffic), staying within their lane, following all the traffic laws then who cares how much they had to drink or if they are texting? Conversely, if they are weaving, driving excessively slow or fast, or breaking numerous traffic laws to the endangerment of others then why should we care what the cause is whether it be alcohol, drugs, playing with the phone, or just being an idiot?
May 15th, 2013 at 10:05 pm
imagine if police officers had to do actual work instead of read numbers on machines that tell them mph or bac….
the bac to determine impairment is a ridiculous idea….. there are full blown alcoholics that go to work every day and function at 0.2 and then there’s my fiancé who isn’t even close to safe at around 0.02….. make it full blown zero tolerance or make it based on actual observation of functional ability. anything in between is arbitrary and dumb.
May 16th, 2013 at 4:33 am
If they are going the posted speed limit (or preferably with the flow of traffic), staying within their lane, following all the traffic laws then who cares how much they had to drink or if they are texting?
The family they smash into?
Impaired/distracted drivers can fake all the things that make them ‘OK’ drivers right up until the point they seriously aren’t.
I’m not a MADD supporter in any way, shape or form.
Like most libtards, MADD is an unruly thug that wants to think for you since they can do it better than you.
May 16th, 2013 at 7:13 am
Its all about revenue.
May 16th, 2013 at 9:23 am
Impaired/distracted drivers can fake all the things that make them ‘OK’ drivers right up until the point they seriously aren’t.
By that reasoning, all drivers who are moving steadily along with traffic and staying in their lane are immediately suspect because they *might* be impaired in some way. That sounds like an argument in favor of building good defensive driving skills.
The “family that got smashed into” is not absolved of responsibility merely by being wrapped in the hallowed shroud of victimhood (to which far too may people aspire, in my opinion). You always hear the argument that “if we had stricter impaired driving laws, this accident could have been prevented”, but you never hear anyone mention that “If the driver who got hit had been paying better attention to his or her surroundings…”. That doesn’t fit the agenda, now does it?
The driver who believes that just one more law will make a difference is the one who will blithely roll into an intersection immediately as the light turns green, confident in the shield provided by the laws against running red lights – right up to the moment they get T-boned by someone who blew through the light. They will almost immediately start crying out for more and stricter laws against running red lights or maybe to have cameras put up at every intersection.
The driver who believes in looking out for themselves and acknowledges that some people are always going to break the law, no matter how many laws there are, will look both ways “just in case” before proceeding forward and will wait to see if the car approaching from the side at a very high speed is actually going to stop for the red light.
May 16th, 2013 at 9:41 am
Precrime is alive and well, I see.
May 16th, 2013 at 10:36 am
These people are cut from the same cloth as those who brought us prohibition. Except this time they’re trying to tighten the screws more slowly thinking the outcome will be different.
It didn’t work the first time around why will it work this time.
May 16th, 2013 at 10:43 am
I quit drinking many years ago, so this doesn’t affect me.
But I find the alcohol laws to be stupid.
1. Changing drinking age to 21 (should be 18);
2. Changing DUI to .08% (should be .10%); and, worst of all
3. Changing DWI to DUI.
Oh, and making state colleges police states with their mall cops running around trying to find students to arrest for drinking.
May 16th, 2013 at 1:18 pm
imagine if police officers had to do actual work instead of read numbers on machines that tell them mph or bac….
True.
But the other side of “just let the cops see if they’re actually impaired” is worrying about cops deciding you’re impaired …. because they don’t like you. Or because they wanted the ticket.
(There’s no solution, of course, that doesn’t screw someone over, potentially.
But if someone MUST be screwed over, I’d prefer it to be the relatively tiny number of Pro-Grade alcoholics who are not impaired at .10% and still drive vs. a completely subjective authority given to Every Traffic Cop to claim “he was totes impaired, for sure”.)
May 16th, 2013 at 1:42 pm
I’m sorry guys, but from a medical viewpoint, 0.05 makes a LOT more sense than 0.08, which was a compromised number in the first place.
There is no RIGHT to drink and drive, just like there is no RIGHT to fire a loaded firearm into a crowd. Effectively, allowing someone to drive with a BAC over .05 is essentially the same thing as allowing someone to fire a gun into a crowd, except the car is much bigger, and thus more likely to hit someone!
My wifes grandfather spent a whole career and retirement with a BAC over .1, and never had an accident, ran 3 very successful businesses, and died in his 80’s. I NEVER saw him sober, nor did she. That does not mean that he wasn’t at high risk.
It’s really very simple…if you drink, don’t drive, period! If you drink at home, you can drink until you are unconscious, I don’t care. If you drink elsewhere, find someone else to drive, I don’t care if you drink until you don’t know your name. But if you drink and drive, I think you should be incarcerated just like you would be for firing a gun into a crowd. No time off for good behavior, no excuses. If you drink and drive and kill someone, that’s premeditated murder in my view. You knew it was possible, you drank, and you drove.
I’m a hardliner on DUI/DWI. This is not a Constitutional RIGHT, its a choice. How many little kids have to die before we actually start prosecuting DUI to the full extent. This isn’t an accident folks, its a planned disaster.
May 16th, 2013 at 4:24 pm
“Impaired/distracted drivers can fake all the things that make them ‘OK’ drivers right up until the point they seriously aren’t.”
You realize this is nearly identical to the gun-grabbers “gun owners are law-abiding right up to the moment they’re not” BS, right?
May 16th, 2013 at 7:56 pm
It originally was 0.15%
The irony, more than 1/2 a dozen times I’ve call the police when dealing with a drunk swerving all over the road. They couldn’t care less to respond.
I’ve driven passed a parked state trooper just staking out, and even they didn’t respond.
This is about money and control.
May 16th, 2013 at 10:53 pm
I’d love to say that I’d prefer bumping it to reckless driving. But you do NOT want to allow officers to exercise free will and discretion.
May 17th, 2013 at 4:53 am
0.05 is an administrative issue. Most states allow drunk drivers to demand a blood test. The breathalyzer is quick and easy for cops. Most states require the blood test be done by a doctor (although a few allow the cop to draw your blood right on the scene).
Going to the hospital and waiting for a blood test lets people sober up and get their BAC below the limit.
ObamaCare increased the expectation among moochers that they are entitled to free health care, and Emergency Room wait times have skyrocketed. Especially nights/weekends. City ERs routinely turn people away now. Lowering the BAC to 0.05 gives the System another hour or two wiggle room.
May 17th, 2013 at 8:09 am
My big problem with a .05 BA is that it doesn’t actually change the behavior. I live in one of the worst states for drunk driving. It’s a daily headline, “Person arrested for DUI with BAC of .18” The people who are drinking and driving are not trying to razor in under the limit, they’re so drunk they can barely unlock the car and they still do it. So a .05 means I’m always going to be the designated driver cause I won’t risk even one beer at that level. Which is exactly what MADD wants.
May 17th, 2013 at 9:26 am
Just going to persecute innocent people who aren’t really driving impaired. I have been noticing lately that it appears being able to stay in your own lane isn’t a requirement anymore. People weaving all over without being stopped but then they have their massive roadblocks to stop 10k people to find 1 person who can blow over their magic number.
May 17th, 2013 at 1:38 pm
From the linked article:
“The NTSB timed the recommendation to coincide with the deadliest alcohol-related highway crash in U.S. history.
On May 14, 1988, a drunk driver drove his pickup the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky. The truck hit a school bus, killing 24 children and three adults and injured 34 others.”
Not mentioned in the coverage: the drunk driver had a 0.24 BAC. so what would a 0.05 BAC limit have done to prevent the accident? He was already legally drunk by 1988 and 2000 standards.
May 17th, 2013 at 2:34 pm
The problem with that reasoning is that if they’re faking it well enough to appear OK, the cops can’t actually pull them over until they actually do something. It’s that whole “reasonable suspicion” thing. The only exception is at checkpoints.
Before we start debating about lowering the limit even further, we need to actually start treating convictions under the current limit seriously. When we stop seeing stories about people who’ve never spent more than a few weekends in jail after 12 DUI convictions getting locked away because they finally killed someone while driving drunk, then we can talk about whether the limit is set low enough or not.
May 18th, 2013 at 1:13 am
@dustydog,
This is completely off topic, but I’d love to know what ER’s are routinely turning away patients. That is a huge violation of current law. ER’s can’t refuse care, period. EVERYONE gets an evaluation, period. I’ve spent way too many nights in ER’s triaging coughs, bruises, and scrapes that could have been handled with Boy Scout first aid.
Blood draws for LE requests don’t typically require and ER visit. They are drawn by a lab tech, at least that was the way it worked when I still worked in ER’s.
We typically could have them in and out in 30 minutes or less, with a preliminary BAC for the officers. BAC’s are harder to deal with than breathalyzers, or so my attorney friends tell me. I’ve seen more than one drunk that requested that he have 2 drawn an hour apart to prove that he wasn’t drunk or drinking. Oddly enough, the second was higher every single time, meaning that they had one or two for the road and their levels were still climbing when they were stopped!
Hammer first time offenders, period. Every time!
May 19th, 2013 at 10:32 am
Good idea , Bill. Mkae it too costly for the offender to risk it.
Now IF they did it like they want to do to gunowners, it would be presumed that all who used alcohol were already going to be DUI offenders and a background check and permit would be mandated before one was able to purchase a drink.
But then I’m sure many people would object considering that a violation of their 4th and 5th Amendment rights…and they would be right.
May 19th, 2013 at 10:16 pm
A few months after my 18th birthday, I was in my first vehicular collision. The other party was making a turn out of the parking lot of a bar, and hit the passenger side B post of my vehicle. The impact spun my vehicle ~190% and knocked the transmission out of gear. She then fled the scene. Nobody really doubted that she was illegally intoxicated, but given the circumstances the police were not confident that they could make a DUI charge stick.
That being said, I think that our laws surrounding DUI/DWI are idiotic.
The purpose of laws is, largely, to discourage antisocial behaviors by which one party deprives another of life/limb/property. This is done by punishing those who cause direct, tangible harm to the life/limb/property of others.
As far as I’m concerned, driving down the road with a high blood alcohol content is negligent, but it doesn’t become criminally negligent until the drunk driver causes direct, tangible harm to another because of her gross negligence.
It really all boils down to malum in se vs malum prohibitum; Negligence isn’t evil until it causes direct harm to another, and I believe that the only moral laws are those that are written to discourage acts that are evil in and of themselves.