BS: Drunk driving

Subject: BS: Drunk driving
From: Raptor
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 08:18 AM

This is a thread to discuss the fact that Drunk Driving is a bad thing no matter who does it.

I lost 5 people who I respected and loved to drunk driving. The latest a 9 year old daughter of my college best friend.

He will never get over it. His life is ruined.

The guy that decided to drive drunk could become someone who does really great things for the next 40 years and he will still be the guy that drank and drove, a choice that was the cause of the death of Al Jelley's daughter on fathers day 2008.

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Raptor
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 08:25 AM

Unlike some other threads on this Discussion board I shall not ask that this be a thread where only people post if they agree with me.

I welcome others opinions and promise to try not to attack them cause they don't agree with my view.

Hell you can pick on my bad spelling.

There are some people who would choose to believe that drunk driving is O.K. if enough time has passed.

Al's daughter will still be dead in 40 years.

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Peace
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 08:34 AM

Raptor, there have been too many scenes for me to be objective on this issue. I think DD should be classed and dealt with under homicide, not traffic. Period.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Emma B
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 08:43 AM

There are some interesting statistics on the MADD (Mothers against Drunk Driving) website

In 2007, an estimated 12,998 people in the US died in alcohol-impaired traffic crashes
Three in every 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash in their lives

A report on the problem of drunk driving from Texas complains that

'From time to time, to be sure, the elected representatives make dutiful bows in the direction of clamping down on drunk driving -- usually after a child has been killed, or an elderly pedestrian, or a carload of teen-agers.
But if there is a state in the nation that has a genuinely effective drunk-driving law, I am unaware of it. It's easy enough to see why the laws are so lax

At the most trivial level, it's because a great many of the people who pass the laws on drunk driving happen to be drinkers themselves; just ask the lobbyists who underwrite their nocturnal festivities.

Similarly, the people who enforce those laws -- the police and the prosecutors and the judges -- do not take drunk driving very seriously, even though it is understood to cause the larger part of the 50,000 highway deaths we manage to rack up each year.
Perhaps that's because the enforcers of the law, like the legislators, enjoy a nip from time to time.

But more likely it has to do with basic American attitudes toward drinking and driving.

One of the most basic of these may be that drunk driving is not a "crime." No "criminal intent" is involved.

Most of the people who slide boozily behind their steering wheels are not "criminal types"; they're nice middle-class folks, just like you and me."

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Emma B
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 08:52 AM

Penalties for drink driving in the UK

For any offence of driving or attempting to drive while over the prescribed alcohol limit, there is a MANDATORY minimum sentence of one year's disqualification.
This can only be waived in very exceptional circumstances, such as if the offence was committed in response to a medical emergency, or if the offender would be completely unable to earn a living.
A first offender will also receive a fine, typically around £300 - £400, although fines can be below £100 for offenders of limited means.

Magistrates have the power to impose longer periods of disqualification and are increasingly making use of this - in some cases 18-month bans have been imposed for BACs below 120 mg. The maximum sentence that can be imposed for driving with excess alcohol is a fine of £5,000, and a 6-month prison sentence

If an offender has committed a second offence within a ten-year period, or has a BAC over 2.5 times the legal limit (i.e. 200 mg or above), they will be classed as a "high-risk offender". They will receive a three-year minimum mandatory period of disqualification, and before they can drive again will be required to satisfy a doctor - at their own expense - that they do not have an ongoing alcohol problem.

The Road Traffic Act of 1991 introduced a new offence of 'Causing death by driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs' which carried a compulsory prison sentence of up to five years.

As of 2002, drivers convicted of causing death by driving when under the influence of alcohol or drugs are required to pass an extended test before being allowed to drive again.

The maximum penalty for causing death by driving when under the influence of alcohol or drugs was increased to 14 years in 2004.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: gnu
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 08:59 AM

I would like to see, in addition to any discipilary action, a mandatory medical assessment for alcohol addiction (tendency) and treatment upon the first offense.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: alanabit
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 09:16 AM

Emma, I am not sure where you live. You quoted the UK laws without comment. Are they more relaxed than the US laws or are they stricter?

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 09:21 AM

So who is supposed to argue with you here Rap? I guess though since the last figure I read said that 37% of all traffic fatalities involved alcohol, then 63% involved sobriety. So my chance of a fatality is less if I'm drunk!

I've had 11 people I knew/know involved in drunk driving incidents, 3 on the wrong side, 5 dead and two left in severely life altered states. One of the ones on the wrong side now does school and group programs with the father of the boy he killed almost 30 years ago.

Did you ever drive drunk or high? Just wondering..........


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Emma B
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 09:26 AM

I live in the UK alanabit and sadly have to report that yet another friend of mine (the third since the laws came into force) has just lost their licence for a year.

I posted the legislation without 'comment' this doesn't mean that I don't have strong personal feelings about causing death while under the influence' which may easily have happened to any of the friends I mentioned if circumstances had been only slightly different :(

As a Brit I'm not sure about the laws in the US but, in conversation with American friends, they seem to be more lax.

It would be interesting for Peace or gnu to outline the legislation in Canada too.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: olddude
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 09:27 AM

I lost my dad to drunk driving when I was 14. He was a big , friendly, man who never had a harsh word to say about anyone. It was not uncommon back in the 60's to stop after work for "a couple of beers" .   He hit an icy patch, ran into the guard rail at 20mpg. No seat belts back then either. Since he was one block from home he walked home. Came in said he was fine, then suddenly fell over and he died in front of me. The steering wheel broke a vessle in his stomach and he bleed to death internally.   

I had a friend next door, he was my brother for all purposes in this life. We grew up together, never apart.   Loved the guy, one time when my girlfriend dumped me before the Christmas dance in High School, his girl friend called me up and asked me to take her to the dance.   I told Al, what the heck is this about, he smiled and said you were so down that I just wanted you to go so I told her to call you. I of course refused but that was Al,   always looking out for me and so many others.

Al liked to drink. I would go to the parties with him and always drove because I rarely drink anything and if so it is no more than a single beer ... But one time I came home from college. I was really sick, Al called and wanted me to go with him to a party. I couldn't because I was sick.   Where we lived had a very bad curve on the highway.

Well exactly 2:12 Am I heard a terrible crash. I ran downstairs and saw that my friend Al had missed the curve and drove the car right down my front steps and into the side of my house.   He had been thrown through the front windshield.   I held him and asked God to take me and leave this good person alone but it doesn't work that way. He was dead. In the back seat of the car was another good friend David. He had been killed instantly .. I was covered in blood.

Al's mom was like my second mother. She and her husband never woke up even when the authorities came to take them away and the car.   I did not wake them. I did not want them to see him ... She never forgave me for not waking her. Told me I was cruel and a horrible person. What she thought was cruel was an act of love. I could not let her see that. She moved away and I never saw her again even when her husband died I only heard about it. That is what drunk driving did to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: olddude
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 09:33 AM

In both cases by the way, the coroner say they were very drunk. Both my dad and Al ... way over any safe limit if there is even such a thing. Sometime at night I dream of what would have been if my dad had lived, how much music I lost with him, how much fishing, how he would have adored his grand kids. How much I miss Al, he was going to ask his girl friend to marry her. He even put the down payment on the ring. When he was killed Annie flipped out, she then came down with an eating disorder that came close to killing her. In and out of hospitals. Even today I heard she is not well. Breathtaking beautiful woman, never married, she died inside when she lost him.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Midchuck
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 09:36 AM

The only good thing about drunk driving is that virtually everyone - barring the most hard-core chronic drunks - agrees that it's a bad thing. You don't get that much of a consensus on most issues. You could add "drunk driving" to the old quote about "Son, try everything in life except incest and folk-dancing."

Use of cell phones - particularly handhelds - and especially texting on them, however, produces very comparable casualty rates, and many people who consider themselves careful and law-abiding drivers do that constantly. I think we need strict laws there as well. But many politicians and other "important" types are among the worst offenders, so we aren't likely to get them.

Peter.

(Full disclosure: I have driven drunk quite a lot. It was all a generation or more ago, and I was young and stupid - as opposed to old and stupid, but more conservative, as I am now - and it was not taken as seriously then as it is now. And I was terribly lucky, as were those on the highway with me. But I have never used a handheld cell phone while driving a vehicle. If only because cell phones didn't exist when I was young enough to think I was invulnerable.)

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 10:04 AM

A vehicle is a dangerous weapon, more dangerous than the guns people worry so much about. To injure someone while drinking and driving is, IMO, assault with a deadly weapon; to kill someone is premeditated murder.

That is how I see it. Unequivocably.

I understand that drinking is an addiction. I chose at about 18 to never use any mind-altering substance - I knew I was flaky to start out, I need every brain cell functioning as well as possible. But I had the advantage of growing up in a non-addictive household.

In those cultures where drinking alcohol is an acceptable rite of passage, encouraged by peers, adults who indulge, and mass advertising, we are each and every one culpable in that we allow that advertising. Prohibition did not work but better education might. That is also the responsibility of each of us. So is changing the laws.

When I think of "better education", I am not thinking of diddly classes on addictions. I mean an education which speaks to the real needs of each individual and does not set kids up for failure in Kindergarten with ridiculous concepts of what a child must learn in order to be a "success" and little consideration of individual differences.

The use, and overuse, of alcohol is often self-medication for difficulties which were not addressed at age 3. The child who was considered dumb - who was really deaf or could not see adequately, or was suffering from some form of abuse or.... Oh, hell, I could write a book; Maybe I will find the time for that someday.

And I have not yet lost anyone close to me to a drunk driver.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: GUEST,Charmion at work
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 10:19 AM

I don't believe the problem is entirely that people take drink too lightly; I think it's *driving* people take for granted, especially in North America. Our communities are built for car travel and the driver's licence is our standard accepted identification document for an adult. A fully fit adult who lives anywhere but a dense downtown (e.g., Manhattan or Cabbagetown) and never drives is either poverty-stricken or strange. People who drive drunk get behind the wheel automatically without regard for the complexity of the task of driving; it never occurs to them to use public transit. Why? In many cases, because public transit is just inconvenient enough, and car ownership not so terribly expensive, that their lives are built around their cars and they can't imagine not using them for any kind of journey.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 10:43 AM

Well, there is a certain tension between this thread and the various eulogies to Senator Edward Kennedy.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Emma B
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 10:52 AM

Drinking and Driving: The Laws in Other Countries

Other countries have different laws than the US. Some are more lenient and some are harsher. In Australia, the blood alcohol content is .05, and lower (.02) for new drivers and those with learner's permits. The punishment for drinking and driving in Australia includes fines, suspension of license, imprisonment, and medical assessment before a driver's license is reinstated.

In some countries, drinking and driving is punishable by death. A first time offense in El Salvador leads to execution by firing squad, while a second offense in Bulgaria also leads to execution.

In France, drinking and driving is punishable by the equivalent of a $1,000 fine, imprisonment for one year, and loss of license for three years. Finland and Sweden automatically sentence drunk drivers to one-year jail sentences including hard labor. In Norway, a drunk driver is jailed for three weeks with hard labor and loses their license for a year. If they do it again, they lose their license forever. In South Africa, drinking and driving results in a ten-year prison sentence or the equivalent of a $10,000 fine and, in some cases, both.

Some countries are more creative in their attempts to keep the inebriated off the road.
Turkey, for example, punishes drunk drivers by taking them 20 miles from their town and making them walk back with a police escort.
In Poland, drunk drivers are subject to jail, fine, and even worse, mandatory attendance at political lectures.
In Malaya, if a man is caught driving drunk he is jailed. If he is married, his wife is jailed, too"


But my favourite quote.......

"In Canada, the first drinking and driving offense warrants loss of license for one year and the equivalent of a $600 fine. The second offense warrants two weeks in jail and loss of license for two years. The third offense warrants three months in jail and loss of license for three years.

After the fourth, they might just send you to America.! "

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Leadfingers
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 10:58 AM

At least in UK Pavements (Sidewalks) are the order of the day , except in the VERY rural areas , whereas in USA they are ONLY found in towns , and certainly NOT in most residential Urban developements .
Same goes for Buses ! ONLY in major City centres so if you want to go down to the Mall , its in the Car , rather than a stroll for a mile or so !
These days in UK , its a walk down to the Pub , and a Designated Driver if you are going any distance !

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Paul Burke
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 11:06 AM

while a second offense in Bulgaria also leads to execution.
Capital punishment is illegal in the EU.

Wikipedia:

i>Capital punishment in Bulgaria was abolished on December 12, 1998 with the last execution having been carried out by firing squad on November 4, 1989. The Parliament of Bulgaria had introduced a moratorium on July 7, 1990 and protocol number six of the European Convention on Human Rights came into force on October 1, 1999.

So I don't know where that came from. In fact, that whole site seems to trigger my bullshit alarm.

The point is that whatever the laws, it's the enforcement that counts. The South African one, if true, is a case in point. Drunken driving is practically the norm in many parts there (witness: the Boy who spent 4 months in SA a few years ago). France at least until very recently seldom enforced drink driving laws; I suspect the same is true in Ireland outside the cities.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Raptor
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 11:16 AM

Spaw

When I was in High school a friend of ours had hit someone while driving and we found out is was another friend of ours dead.

It ruined both lives.

Unless I'm not driving I drink iced tea. I won't even have one.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 11:43 AM

Good for you Rap.....and I'm glad to say I don't either. But that's been only since 1974 when I was 25. Before that, I am not proud to tell you that I drove and rode motorcycles both drunk and stoned......and on a very regular basis. I don't know why I didn't kill or maim someone or why I'm not dead myself. I do remember the last time I did drive under the influence in '74. I won't forget it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: alanabit
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 12:55 PM

Thanks Emma. The last time I drove under the influence I was working in a Swiss hotel in 1995. I drank two small beers after I had finished my set when the manager asked me to drive the barmaid home. It was only a matter of a couple of kilometres and in South Switzerland you are more likely to run over a fox than to even see another vehicle. To this day I do not know whether I was actually "legal" or not. I do know for sure, however, that if I had been asked earlier to drive the barmaid home, I would not have drunk any beer at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: olddude
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 01:06 PM

They always called it accidents back then ... at least today they call it what it really is. It was common for people to drive drunk and it was common for people to die driving drunk. How many times I have wished my dad didn't do that and my friend Al didn't do that. With Al I always drove because I didn't drink.. I blamed myself for years ... all the questions, why did I have to be sick, why didn't I go anyway, why was I not there to drive, he would be alive. It took me years to get over the fact that I wasn't there, I wasn't in the car. Al made the decision to drive and it cost him and my friend Dave his life. It was my dad's decision to drive drunk and it cost my dad his life ...

I speak out, no I scream about drunk drivers ... the cost to me and my family from it is beyond measure in terms of pain. Like I said I will still at times wake up with tears wondering what could have been if it were not for some drinks.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 03:32 PM

Here's a story that happened when I was a college student, about 40 years ago.

Some utility workers had dug a hole in a nearby street. At the end of the day, the work wasn't finished, so they put barricades around the hole with flashing lights. About 9 or 10 o'clock that night, a drunk driver plowed through the barricades. His left front wheel had gone into the hole and his car was now resting on its frame. He couldn't drive out.

This happened on a busy street in the middle of a college campus. A crowd of students, mostly male, had gathered around. The driver was much older—not a student. When I arrived, he was asking the students to help push his car out of the hole. They were saying, no, it's impossible.

I went back into my dorm, less than half a block away, and called the police. I described what I had seen, and gave them my name, address, phone number, and the exact location of the accident. Then I went back outside.

When I arrived, the students had pushed him out of the hole after all. The drunk got back in his car and drove away. He drove down the left side of a two-way street until he got to a busy intersection, and then he took a right turn (!) and disappeared.

I asked one of the students who had pushed him out, "What did you do that for?" He answered, "I just wanted to do a good deed. Now maybe he won't get in trouble." (!!!!)

Before the driver got away, I wrote down his license number. (I hadn't done so when I made the phone call.) I stood and waited for the police to arrive. I stood there over half an hour (alone, because the crowd had dispersed—and in cold weather), and they never came! They never contacted me, either, although I had given them complete contact information!

It goes to show what attitudes were like in those days—and might still be, for all I know.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: akenaton
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 03:34 PM

Funny how people change their behaviour, just by being forced into THINKING about the possible consequences.

In the part of Scotland where I live, people always drove to the pub and then drove home on "automatic pilot". It was very common, and folks used to laugh at the various vehicles adorning the ditches on a Saturday or Sunday morning.......Today it is unacceptable to drink and drive and anyone trying it will soon be reported to the police, but it is literally years since I saw a drunk driver.

Its like smoking, a social no-no.

Personally, I've driven under the influence many times when I was younger, but rarely drink nowadays, and NEVER when driving.

Mr Kennedy's real crime was not drink driving....but cowardice!

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 03:47 PM

As olddude and Spaw have intimated, the issue was looked at differently in the "old days". The concept of designated driver hadn't even been formulated yet; about the closest to that was when a fairly sober spouse drove the other one home.

I'm not speaking of too long ago, either. At least not to me; this was in the 50s and 60s. I'm sure attitudes were even more unenlightened in the decades before then.

This was back in the days when some drinkers sincerely believed that they drove better 'under the influence'.

And seat belts -there were few regulations concerning them Many cars didn't even have any. The first car I owned that had them was my 64 Mustang - and that was just a belly belt.

Not to make excuses. I fully agree, nowadays, that diving a 2-ton object around while impaired is unconscionable. It should ever have been thus. But it wasn't- in those days, I think people tended to think of it as an issue of freedom.

Like me in the days when I was a smoker- I didn't consider a non-smoker's right to breathe clean air. "Hey, I'm a smoker! I can't help that!"

In Alaska today you can get a ticket for driving a lawnmower under the influence.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: olddude
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 04:09 PM

I remember in the 60's the cops would pick up an under age teenage drunk driver and simply take him or her home to their parents in my town. I am glad the laws finally got tough ... I don't want anyone to live through what I did

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Stringsinger
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 04:52 PM

There is no such thing as a responsible drunk.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 05:34 PM

Wyoming is TERRIBLE about this. It is such a HUGE place, not much to do, so folks drink then drive back to the ranch.

The state capital is in the extreme south east corner of the state....say, 600 miles? from the north west corner...and of COURSE the legislators like their beer on the road so they don't get any tougher.

It is NOT illegal in Wyoming to drive farm equipment like tractors when drunk, and you don't need a liscense to drive them...so....

The folks who have had their lisecenss taken away just drive a tractor or a lawn mower to the bars!

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: romanyman
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 05:46 PM

Everyone knows someone who drink drives anyone who attends a pub singaround or one day festival will see it, wether musician, morris dancer , whatever, just look around. How many of you have the courage to say to that person , persons, why ?
Just think of the families of the victims and maybe strength will come.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: ranger1
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 05:54 PM

For the non-US folks: in the US, there is no federal law governing drunk driving and the laws vary from state to state. Some states are more strict than others, both with regards to legal limits and the penalties involved. Just wanted to clarify that.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Raptor
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 09:07 PM

Here in Canada if you get caught drinking an in the care (driving) a powerboat you will lose your licence as well and are subject to the same laws.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Aug 09 - 11:33 PM

Is there any state in the US where the legal limit is higher than the standard .08%, Ranger1? I could do some research, I suppose, but do you have the figures?

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: ranger1
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 07:04 AM

Not sure, Ebbie. Used to be, but maybe they have all gone to .08 now. I know Maine went to .08 long before NH did, but NH did eventually follow suit about ten years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 08:58 AM

Anyone remember the classic episode of "WKRP" where they do the on-air drinking versus reaction time test and Johnny Fever gets faster? Funniest parts of that episode though were when Venus went to Carlson to get a hat.........

"Hey Art! Loan me a lid.....Cops got a hat, I want a hat."


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: theleveller
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 09:07 AM

Another penalty for drink driving in the UK is that, even if you are able to get insured after your ban, for the next ten years the premium will be astronomical.

When my son passed his driving test I hammered home the point that, if he ever got caught driving under the influence, he could wave goodbye to driving again for a very long time as he wouldn't stand a chance of getting insurance. Luckily, he and his mates seem to have taken the message on board and when they go out they take it in turns to drive and not to drink.

I've also made him understand that, if he's been drinking the night before, he can still be over the limit the morning after.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: theleveller
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 09:15 AM

Also, people who are employed in jobs involving children, vulnerable adults and many others positions now have to undergo enhanced police checks. This will show up a drink driving conviction and, in many cases, may mean that the individual is deemed unsuitable for employment.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 05:34 PM

It appears that all the states but two have set their limit at .08; Colorado and Minnesota set theirs at .10

Legalities by US State

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Joe_F
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 09:37 PM

Yeah, it's part of the culture, especially in the country, where the density is lower, drunken drivers mostly hurt themselves, and it's hard to get to & from a bar without driving. Kipling actually wrote a comic poem about drunken driving (in the days when drivers were mostly rich). It would be hard, in many places, to find a judge & jurors who hadn't driven drunk themselves.

Drinking & driving go together in a lot of young men's minds -- they are Things You Do When You Grow Up -- and so, if the young men are foolish enough (as they mostly are), drinking & driving will go together in their behavior as well. I suspect that the founders of Mothers Against Drunken Driving made a mistake in choosing that name. Deep in the brains of fools, I think, is a little phonograph that replies "Leave mothers out of this".

Here is a modest proposal that might do a little good, at least in town. In most or all states of the US, the driving age (16?) is younger than the drinking age (21). Let the state issue to young people who choose it a permit stating that the bearer is *not* licensed to drive and may therefore buy alcoholic drinks in establishments licensed for that purpose, for consumption on the premises. There would, I suppose, be few takers, but there might be some who would use the opportunity to go out drinking with their parents. At any rate, the existence of the choice would give the right message.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: bobad
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 09:58 PM

Ten drugs you shouldn't do if you're driving: YouTube Link

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Aug 09 - 01:11 PM

Presumably you are talking about driving while over the LEGAL limit.
To my mind there is a lot of difference between,being one point over the limit,and being twice or three times the limit.
punishment must reflect that fact,as regards paying increasd insurance it does not as far as I am aware
the problem to some extent rests with the government,I live in rural Ireland,there is no public transport,in practice there are no taxis,it is no longer feasible to take a pony and cart,to the pub,because there are some very dangerous sober drivers,very dangerous boy racers,etc,it is in fact quite dangerous to walk down narrow country lanes even with illuminated clothing.
but this is what I am forced to do,if I am killed by a sober maniac driver,who is driving too fast for the road conditions,I feel he should be treated in exctly the same way as a driver who kills somebody while over the limit.

Personally, I think that dangerous driving which results in death,whether the person be sober, drunk,or high on drugs,should be treated equally severely.
if someone takes a life while driving dangerously while sober,or being under the influence of drink or drugs.they should be treated equally severely.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Paul Burke
Date: 29 Aug 09 - 01:36 PM

Flu can make you as wobbly as booze: should driving under the influenza be an offence? I'm not sure I think so, but I think the police should have the power (if they haven't got it already) to summon an assistant driver in such cases to get the car to a safe location. Paid for out of the car's insurance of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Aug 09 - 01:37 PM

oh yes,the other day I was driving,and I was nearly killed,by someone driving while on the phone,and guess what, he was driving a juggernauta so called professional driver.
and then there are the idiots over on www.session.org,who drive while playing the whistle.
I think these sober people, if they take a life through either careless or dangerous driving,should be treated equally harshly,as someone who takes a life while under the influence.
and I do not believe the legal DRINK limit should be lowered in rural IRELAND,until there is proper public transport,or proper taxi services,and no I do not drink and drive,I walk to my pub,and take the risk of being killed by some sober idiot playing the whistle or on their mobile phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: gnu
Date: 29 Aug 09 - 04:26 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: gnu
Date: 29 Aug 09 - 04:27 PM

wha?

Spaw... "WKRP"... great show and yes, that was comical.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: olddude
Date: 29 Aug 09 - 09:34 PM

WKRP? that was way before my time LOL ... gosh you folks are old !!

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Aug 09 - 02:31 PM

www.session.org
August 28th 2009         Playing while driving         Kerry Evan         130

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: frogprince
Date: 30 Aug 09 - 07:51 PM

While I was in junior high, a drunk killed a grade school boy who was getting off the school bus on our route; everything looked clear when the bus driver let the boy off, and the drunk appeared at God knows what speed. The long-time county sheriff testified that, given the man's history of alcoholism, he probably could drive better drunk. The sheriff was out of office at the next election. It's been over 50 years; I don't remember to what degree the drunk paid for what he did. We lost several students from our very small country school to their own drunk driving, or that of the driver they were with, while I was in junior high and high school. At least two of my classmates went the same way within a few years after graduation.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 12:57 PM

but do drivers who kill people,while sober, or while using their mobile phones or any other irresponsible action get treated as severely as those who do so while under the influence of drink.
I am fairly sure that insurance companies are more lenient[re premiums] towards somebody who has lost their licence while using a mobile phone than someone who has lost their licence for being over the alcohol limit,why should this be,they are equally dangerous.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Peace
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 01:02 PM

Maybe the difference is that one impairs the person and subsequently impairs the person's ability to drive safely. The other impairs the ability to drive safely even though the person him/herself is not impaired.

I do not understand why politicos have not had the cajones to make use a a cell phone (what you call a mobile phone) while driving. The only arguments against a law like that were likely dealt with when the unpopular seat belt law was brought in.

Subject: RE: BS: Drunk driving
From: Stringsinger
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 04:57 PM

Drunk driving is a form of murder. Pure and simple.