Interesting idea, Stringkiller. I haven't heard of anything that innovative here in the States, but that doesn't mena there aren't any places doing that. Out here in what can tend to be the "macho" West, I think we'd be hard put to get the ones who are truly over the limit to consent to any kind of voluntary test, especially as their judgement could already be impaired. Still, I think it is an idea worth trying out.

In their 1996 stats, Mothers Against Drunk Driving reported that in the previous ten years four times as many Americans died in drunk driving wrecks as died in the Vietnam War. Over 1 million were injured and the cost of alcohol-related crashes was about $45 billion per year.

In 1996, according to MADD, the median jail sentence in the US for "driving under the influence" was 6 months. Nearly nine out of ten convicted and in jail had already been sentenced before to probation, jail, or prison for drunk driving.

According to the Department of Defense Abuse Prevention Program, this was in 1998 when I got this info:

a second conviction in Bulgaria for DWI resulted in a death sentence (I am not making this up!);

in South Africa, a DWI was an automatic 10 years in prison, a $100 fine, or both;

in Chile, definite jail time, if someone was injured, a minimum of 18 months in jail;

two years mandatory in Israel has worked so well, that they rarely prosecute more than one drunk driver per year, as of 1998;

in Norway, one's license is suspended for 3 months;

in Finland and Sweden, drunk drivers get an automatic one year jail term;

according to this same report, in Great Britain, there is an automatic suspension of driving for one year with a possible six months in jail, plus a fine and community service;

in Turkey, a DWI offender is driven out of town 20 miles and made to walk back.

I think we should have mandatory revocation of driver's licenses, fines, community service, and jail time if appropriate.

The designated driver thing seems to be doing somewhat of a good job, at least in the circles I have contact with; my youngest daughter is always the designatee as she does not drink.

I have been impressed with an ad which is on TV, here. It looks as though it was court-ordered. A young man and another were racing their cars on a country road, while drunk. Groups of their friends were on either sides of the road cheering them on, when one of the drivers plowed right into his very best friend, killing him instantly.

The ad is powerful, with the driver telling about that night, while in the background a kind of shadowing re-enactment takes place. It ends with the young man placing flowers by a marker on the road where he killed his friend and saying "this is for my friend" with the boy's name. Then there is a message about drinking and driving not mixing and the driver saying one could even lose their best friend. I hope that other young people, as well as others, watch that and take heed. It is a real tragedy.

kat