Unfair DUI Laws

[worldnick]

This is a response to a man named Glen who had received 3 DUIs over the course of 20 years. He asked if his 10+ years of driving suspension was too tough and I wanted to make this perfectly clear so we all know what we are dealing with regarding these alcohol unusually cruel mental punishments as well as physical restrictions:

It sounds like your life has been ruined as a result of MADD and the witch hunt in America. These people have nothing better to do with their time yet there are starving people wars all over the world. The statistics have all been manipulated and the damage from the actual laws is much worse than what they are trying to prevent. It is my opinion that the amount of time and stigma associated with your ~7 years and miscellaneous trauma inducing alcohol programs is equivilant to many years in jail. Subjecting mass amounts of population to these kinds of vindictive mob punishments does more damage to our culture and individual lives than the few casualties of actual drinking and driving. The stigma associated with it is also worse than the crime. A good person can suddenly become an outcast and you are now branded as having a drinking problem and the government forces you to go to religious worship (AA) meetings. This is a perversion of what God is supposed to be about as well forgiveness. We don't call everyone who has a child a nymphomaniac just like getting 2 DUIs could mean you only ever drank on 2 occasions. Everything about DUIs smells of a lynch mobbing witch hunt where everyone is at risk. The founder of MADD has a DUI. Anyone can get a DUI yet people like to believe that they are some how better than the victims of DUI laws. We need to repeal these draconian laws and concentrate on the real problem, that driving in general is very dangerous and if we had better public transportation and safer cars we would have less problems. We should not attack human nature and especially people who like to drink who are often times the people who have the courage to move society forward. We should focus rather on the infrastructure we have built which is unsafe for ordinary activity.

More people die of drowsy driving, but it would be silly to say that we all have sleeping problems. It is just easy for people to pick on alcohol especially for people who have no occasion to celebrate. Should we give in to those people and make the world less happy or should we just make cars safer OR option number 3 deal with it and stop seeking vengeance.

[zedex]

Is that you, BE??








Had to add that. Seriously, I wouldn't say its a witch hunt. DUI is a serious problem and needs to be dealt with more harshly.

If you don't think so, consider this:

A young man who is out with some friends gets T-boned by a car. The man driving is killed, one passenger is in a coma for four months and has to learn to walk and feed himself again. The other passenger is unharmed, yet shaken to the point he cannot get into another car.

The dead man's two brother's saw the crash. They were only 40 feet away. Not far away, but close enough to watch the cars flip after the violent crash. The brothers-- not in the car, but 40 ft away get cuts from the flying glass.

The guy that hit the car was drunk. Not snot slinging slobbering drunk, but drunk enough to lose control of his car at 70mph and hit a parked car. He is not hurt at all. His BAC is 50% more than legal limit.

Imagine the pain of one brother as he has to call their mother telling her of this and her pain as she hears that her youngest son is dead. The police are there, so is the ambulances. The entire road is shut down for hours.

At the hospital, families congregate. A large group of people appear from nowhere. The dead man's family are all there. No one can believe this has happened. The father is stunned as it is officially announced the man did not survive. The mother screams in agony. People who had nothing to do with the crash or the families start crying as they can see and perhaps feel the pain of the family.

The funeral is sad. Family from hundreds of miles appear. Friends of the man are there, some unknown to the family. The mother still cannot grasp the concept that her son won't be coming through the door anymore.

The dead man's death was unremarkable throughout the rest of the country, but for two counties, it was a major event. Businesses shut down for the day in his honor. He was only 19 and made that great of an impact.

The drunk man's trial begins and it is only then it is discovered by the family that the drunk man had killed someone less than a year earlier in another state while DUI. A technicality got him off the hook. It is also learned that the man had several previous arrests and convictions for DUI. But, the courts took it easy on him because he had a problem and needed help, not jail.

Imagine that happeneing to a family member of yours. Imagine that because of a screwup on the investigating police's part, the drunk walks again after killing your family member.

See, you have to imagine that. I don't. I was one of the brothers that saw the crash. It was my mother whose tears still fall when my little brother's name is mentioned. I was a pallbearer at my brother's funeral. I buried my mother's son, my brother and my best friend because of people like you.

I watched that piece of shit drunk walk out of that courtroom.

Drive drunk if you like. But, don't ever let me catch you. Its not a threat. Its a promise

[Crimeboss1966]

And your saying what? This could not have possably happened if the guy had been sober? I hear you but also think you and anyone else that thinks this only happens when people are drinking is an idiot.

[cdwjava]

No one has opined that such tragedies happen ONLY when someone is impaired, but since approximately one third of all fatal and serious injury collisions involve impaired drivers, the relationship between DUI and disaster is quite strong. It is also easily preventable, and unlike brief driver lapses that might last seconds, an impaired driver is so impaired for the entire length of his time behind the wheel that night (or even day).

[souperdave]

....It sounds like your life has been ruined as a result of MADD and the witch hunt in America.........

You are QUITE mistaken!

The "life" was "ruined" by a decision to drink and then drive!

SELF IMPOSED!

Here, let me get all those damn trees out the way so that you can see the forests.

[ashman165]

This is a response to a man named Glen who had received 3 DUIs over the course of 20 years. He asked if his 10+ years of driving suspension was too tough and I wanted to make this perfectly clear so we all know what we are dealing with regarding these alcohol unusually cruel mental punishments as well as physical restrictions:

Yeah, depriving someone of their privilege (alas, it's not a right commanded from on high subject only to the prerogative of the divine to grant or revoke) to drive for showing that the presumption they're capable of handling the attendant responsibilities of driving with some degree of mature thinking was faulty is really "cruel" and manifestly "unusual". Hell, until you mentioned this possibility, I hadn't once ever heard of anyone, anywhere losing the "right" to drive for violating the social contract impliedly agreed to when accepting the license in the first instance. /sarcasm

It sounds like your life has been ruined as a result of MADD and the witch hunt in America. These people have nothing better to do with their time yet there are starving people wars all over the world.

Are you writing this while drunk? "with their time yet there are starving people wars all over the world."? The hell does that even mean? I mean, I recognize all of the words and it looks like it's English. But not so much.

The statistics have all been manipulated and the damage from the actual laws is much worse than what they are trying to prevent.

We don't get nearly enough conspiracy whack-jobs around here these days. Do stick around. Incidentally, I'm glad that you're reasonable enough to agree that there is measurable damage inflicted specifically because of the drunken drivers. It's a (small) step in the right direction.

[It is my opinion that the amount of time and stigma associated with your ~7 years and miscellaneous trauma inducing alcohol programs is equivilant to many years in jail.

It is my opinion that the time you spent in school was a waste of money. The difference between our opinions? Mine is at least reasonable in that it takes account of evidence presented; it isn't just something I decided to make up and believe.

Subjecting mass amounts of population to these kinds of vindictive mob punishments does more damage to our culture and individual lives than the few casualties of actual drinking and driving.

No, we punish them individually. There is, of course, a very easy way to stop these punishments, but some people just can't drink and then not drive. Alas, some people are just thick.

The stigma associated with it is also worse than the crime. A good person can suddenly become an outcast and you are now branded as having a drinking problem and the government forces you to go to religious worship (AA) meetings.

No, I think it's fairly congruent with the run of the mill DUI. Tell someone you had a dui a few years ago and people will forgive you provided you aren't still driving drunk. But the stigma attached to it is nowhere near where it should be for the reason we have the laws against it in the first place: asshats like that kill people. Every year. Innocent people. Kids, fathers, mothers, police officers and a whole litany of other classes you could care to name. When you undertake an action which has a likelihood of causing the death of another through no fault of said other, you should bear a stigma. And never should a day go by that those who did the killing but lived through it should have the slightest of ease with the situation. It is inexcusably horrific conduct which attacks our morality at its core. It kills people not on noble ideological grounds like "self defense" or, a fight against genocide; it erases from history the grand perhaps of tomorrow's society for no loftier a reason than perverse selfishness.

The stigma is the least of the problems people situated like this have to worry after.

This is a perversion of what God is supposed to be about as well forgiveness.

Even if I accepted anyone's god as being extant, I'd still offer you up the following phrase: not being a god myself, I'm perfectly entitled to hold the contemptible among us in contempt; I'm perfectly entitled to hold a grudge against them for their actions and to offer up as an attendant consequence of their action the horrid inconvenience of having to use the bus.

We don't call everyone who has a child a nymphomaniac just like getting 2 DUIs could mean you only ever drank on 2 occasions.

No, much like we don't call everyone who has a drink an alcoholic, or everyone uses a sick-day a malingerer. You see, we have more specified words which paint a truer representation of a person who has a child: a parent.

Everything about DUIs smells of a lynch mobbing witch hunt where everyone is at risk.

Yeah, and the way we catch them is fishy too. It's totally rigged; consider, the police were arresting every drunk driver in that particular crash. I guess that's profiling, huh?

The founder of MADD has a DUI. Anyone can get a DUI yet people like to believe that they are some how better than the victims of DUI laws. We need to repeal these draconian laws and concentrate on the real problem, that driving in general is very dangerous

which is compounded in danger exponentially when one has a driver who no longer has the mental agency remaining to mitigate the risk.

and if we had better public transportation and safer cars we would have less problems.

So too would it be the case if we have no drunk drivers. But these needn't be exclusive concepts.

We should not attack human nature and especially people who like to drink who are often times the people who have the courage to move society forward.

It is not the prevailing case that an essential nature of the human condition is to kill people out of selfishness. Humans are generally quite locally altruistic.

We should focus rather on the infrastructure we have built which is unsafe for ordinary activity.

If it is the case that it's unsafe for ordinary activity, then a fortiori it is the case that it's manifestly unsafe to a greater degree when you add to the ordinary risk an agent incapable of appropriately responding.

More people die of drowsy driving, but it would be silly to say that we all have sleeping problems.

Sometimes in life, I'm sorry to say, it's helpful when one argues a position that the facts of the matter support one's position. Your claim is demonstrably untrue. I'll take 2005 since several organizations were then studying this very topic: in 2005 at least 1,550 deaths were proximately caused by drowsy driving. In a completely unrelated study, since these data are collected every year, 16,885 deaths were proximately caused by drunk drivers. Even if we argue a 50% margin of error in the drowsy driving statistics collected, you are still wrong by about an entire order of magnitude. This is not a trivial error.

But all of that is immaterial because your diatribe here fails to take into account one minor point: governments are capable of doing more than one thing at a time. So, it isn't the either or proposition you've painted it as being. We are fully capable of working to reduce drowsy driving and drunken driving, simultaneously. At the same time we work towards that reduction, we also work towards lowering murders committed, rates of murders committed, rapes committed, burglaries, insurance fraud, while still having time left over to enforce food safety regulations, tax code requirements and an entire host of other things. It isn't as though there's one guy in the government whose job it is to do all of these one at a time.

It is just easy for people to pick on alcohol especially for people who have no occasion to celebrate. Should we give in to those people and make the world less happy or should we just make cars safer OR option number 3 deal with it and stop seeking vengeance.

I like option four: when the children can't behave themselves, they need a timeout.

Edit: wow, I just responded to the OP, which I see now was written late last year. In light of that, um, new guy who responded with the nonsensical question/claim: don't be so willfully daft.

Zedex, you have my deepest sympathies.

[Another Demise]

ill give the OP some points. You had a few very few, im not sure if you even know why though lol. the person who said his brother was t boned that's really sad and i take that into consideration in a debate forum but ethically i will not hear of it if in the chamber of law makers or the court or the jury itself. That's now how I would like laws coming to be.


You said that drowsiness was less stigmatized and i agree. But as the saying goes (i've only heard Dr. Phil say it but still) "you can't justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior." So you essentially tried to pass the buck, paint a better light on a very dark situation, and then try to actually imply that law enforcement was only able to make one arrest on one charge at a time! Watching the news, Cops, anything should show you people are arrested on multiple offenses every minute of every day.

NOW I AGREE that there is a hypocritical and witch hunting component to some of the seam of the anti DUI movement. I think that is kinda wrong in he same sense of the syn tax. However that doesn't negate the facts which have been shown time and time again that a drunk driver can't drive or do a lot right. Even if you are the exception to the rule, which you could very well be, the laws are based o those studies. If your over the limit and you can prove in some type of test you are still not impaired I'll give you a high five and reserve any preaching against you. LIKE i said some people can drink more and not be. DUI charge (based on strict standards) or not ill accept that w/o condemnation.

As far as the punishment for drowsiness you had no point because those people can still face negligence charges, etc ad prison time, and they can double or triple up on those charges, they might even be felonies in some places. Its a plethora of legal problems awaiting sleepy head too man...

I agree that there is a valid debate here. I have ALWAYS felt that was only because driving drunk isn't seen as malicious. We take a "s/he diddn't mean to though" stance and that complicates it. Intent is also used every day to effect sentencing.

Another valid pint you brought up w/o knowing was the public transit issue. Were I live we haven't had cabs since the late '90s and ever ever a bus. Maybe in the doo wop era or sumthin but i never seen em. I think a huge problem is if a person who is drunk decides that they can't drive they still have a lot of dilemmas. Some people no another forum where saying if you get drunk you can't even hop in ur back seat and sleep it off even if its not running and the keys are a mile away. You can't walk home drunk because thats a PI and mandatory 12 or 48 hours. You cant try to get creative and ride a bike. i saw a guy on cops get a DUI on a bike, although it could've just been calif law. Roller skates might also be effected!!! And sometimes your in places where you might not be able to stay or it might not be safe and cabs are really expensive or sumtimes not in service. So I think that compounds the choice to try to drive. The police kinda corner you on that one.

I aint a drinker and laugh at the people who get wasted but if anyone with a "you should had drunk period" response attacks the OP on the above point I'll back him there!

I don't agree with emotional arguements even though thats tear jerking what the guy said about his bro but i think the science is just there and you have not much of a defense OP. im not a finger wagger but if a drunk t boned me id have to swerve on him (see urban dictionary term) IF and ONLY IF I was even still alive...

[cdwjava]

Some people no another forum where saying if you get drunk you can't even hop in ur back seat and sleep it off even if its not running and the keys are a mile away.

Some states have made that sufficient for DUI ... not mine, however.

You can't walk home drunk because thats a PI and mandatory 12 or 48 hours.

Again, laws vary by state, but most require more than having simply consumed alcohol they also require some measure of disruptive behavior or inebriation to the point of not being able to care for one's self. Just having pounded back a few is not enough in most states.

You cant try to get creative and ride a bike. i saw a guy on cops get a DUI on a bike, although it could've just been calif law. Roller skates might also be effected!!!

In CA we have a law specificlly geared towards driving a bicycle while impaired (CVC 21200.5), and if on skates, you might get popped for public intoxication if sufficiently unable to care for yourself or others.

All that aside, impaired drivers are the single greatest cause of fatal collisions in my state and, I believe, nationwide as well. They may be the cause of only about 10-15% of property damage only collisions, but fatal and serious injury collisions put them at between 30-36% depending on which numbers you use, and for what state. Off the top of my head I believe the 2008 numbers for CA were 35.7% of fatals, and 12% of non-injury collisions were caused by impaired drivers.

I have no sympathy for impaired drivers. And I do believe emotional arguments DO have a place in the passage of legislation. The human element cannot be ignored when trying to prevent crime and establishing law. Absent the human element we are left with cold, statistical reasoning. What then? We evaluate the financial cost to society and to the victim? If not for the emotional impact of crimes, we are left with other criteria which could very well result in violent criminals suffering lesser penalties ... which, in the case of most vehicular manslaughter cases involving DUI drivers, is already horrendously low.

There is a place for the emotional impact. Unfortunately, too few legislators have actually seen it.

[cyjeff]

There are places for draconian law.

Anyplace where an individual commits an act that puts the common populace in danger is such a place.

Getting behind the controls of a 2 ton bullet and then piloting it at speed with anything less that total sobriety is cause for worry and danger.

To say that all driving is dangerous is accurate. To then say that those that decide that driving is not dangerous enough and so must be performed with a self induced handicap are NOT to be punished is stupid.

I would feel the exact same way if you were demanding to drive while blindfolded.

[Another Demise]

Some states have made that sufficient for DUI ... not mine, however.

|-|ell, I guess we are having like 51 debates here or like 60 if your countin commonwealths and territories :/

most require more than having simply consumed alcohol they also require some measure of disruptive behavior or inebriation to the point of not being able to care for one's self. Just having pounded back a few is not enough in most states

in these parts a wobble will do. at one point the cops had tried to pull me over for walking near the edge of the drainage part of the road and then tried to say he "smelled alcohol" on me when he had passed with his windows up 3 whole lanes away!
if you can't walk on a line or throw your leg up in the air like liborachi around here they are taking you away. This happens to people trying to get home, not causing trouble at all. come on man.. But hey you said it yourself, we got 50 states and 50 laws.

In CA we have a law specificlly geared towards driving a bicycle while impaired (CVC 21200.5), and if on skates, you might get popped for public intoxication if sufficiently unable to care for yourself or others.

All that aside, impaired drivers are the single greatest cause of fatal collisions in my state and, I believe, nationwide as well.

Yeah and the bike law is overkill. I Think the law is also just listed as dui.. So anyone seeing oes record wouldn't come withen a mile of being able to put things in context which i don't think is fair either. YOU SEEM TO NOT UNDERSTAND I have a huge issue with drunks driving. I am down with more serious punishments. even when its a friend if you got a DUI I will give you a huge piece of my mind. I just feel like in some regards once you reach the point where you have drank so much that you know its time to put the keys away and you try through alternate means to journey home, there is still an effort from law enforcement to try to get an alchohol related collar. What do you mean care for yourself or others? The problem with laws being vague is they are open to interpretation by thousands of difference officers in thousands of different situations. my definition of caring for ones self is not falling over drunk and not wobbling into traffic...

I have no sympathy for impaired drivers. And I do believe emotional arguments DO have a place in the passage of legislation. The human element cannot be ignored when trying to prevent crime and establishing law. Absent the human element we are left with cold, statistical reasoning.

LOGIC and mutual respect for civil rights and human rights are what laws need to be based on.. What your alluding to isn't even needed. DUIs lead to outlawism or increase its risk. The DUI law is to prevent yo from committing a plethora of other things such as homicide, assault, reckless driving, property damage, etc. No one needs an emotional argument when you have a pandora's box argument firm in place.

zedex, while having a very moving story isn't arguing that because he felt some emotional impact from event x that event x is necessarily wrong. He's arguing that he felt emotional distress because his brother was killed by a person whose conduct failed to meet some arbitrary minimum standard of acceptable behavior we've decided among ourselves over the years to codify.

I didn't say that at all, all i was saying is the end results effect on his brother i.e. his demise was the only thing that should had held relevance to a law maker or even a judge not the massive emotional and psychological devastation caused by witnessing said event and even the residual effects on the victim's family to even take care of itself properly. We have already established that the breking of some laws are worser then others. I think the level system can also take the place of emotional dribble directed at law makers, judges, and juries.

our society is perfectly fine with anyone killing another for a good reason, a bad reason, or no specific reason at all. If that be the case, then there's no reason to think any of us should be able to walk around without being killed, just because someone feels like it.

Thats not true either. regardless of justifications whenever a life is taking you have 3 possible charges, murder, manslaughter, and homicide. A court of law determines if your killing was 1 of those 3 or simply not a law broken at all.

Where's the hypocrisy? The laws applies to all people equally: no one is exempted from the requirements of the law. You might argue that there are some individual cases in which individual police officers are hypocritical, but that is wholly irrelevant to whether the law is such.

a witch hunt is fundamentally unjustifiable. iTS from the same realm as mob rule or even prison politics.. i wasn't saying the laws but those who worked tirelesly to have it past. If there is a perception of hypocracy by association that is enough to undermine the law period. OP said the madd leader had a dui, maybe religious zealots who break other religious laws

There is no valid point to be found anywhere in that position. It is not a valid point to claim that x should be able to potentially kill y because x wants to go somewhere and get drunk but didn't want to arrange transportation back home. If one can't make such an arrangements to go get back home after going out drinking, then one has to forgo that night's drinking. This is what responsibility is all about, you see. You are arguing that a person's willful irresponsibility is a point cutting in their favor for allowing their conduct in the first case. This is, by any description of an argument one wants to adopt, profoundly stupid.

AND SEE you keep going back to responsibility like your scolding your kids or something. Your engaging in finger wagging. Heres the problem though, alternative transportation IS NOT law and all and all responsibility IS NOT law. Based on your logic I could charge a man with destruction of federal property and rail road property or w/e because his truck stopped on the track. bUT wait why did he stop? Because he ran out of gas but thought he could still make it into town. But why is he wrong? because he wasnt responsible (there that word is again) enough to walk a gas jug to the station or arrange a ride to get there.

OOH OOH heres another one based on your logic. WE charge a woman with negligent homicide and child neglect. Why? becase shes got two kids in the back,one is starved and the other froze to death. How is she nresponsible though? Because she wouldn't fix that head gasket which lead to her head over heating which led to the car stopping in the middle of no where during a snowstorm, oh and also she wasn't responsible (that damn word again) to fix the folding roof on her convertable...

Look here, things happen. Sometimes no one back at the crib wants to answer their phone at 2 or 3, you know thats last calls time right? Some people don't know until they are at their doors, hey I can't do this. Some times you just can't get a hold of anyone, maybe your to far out. This is compounded when yor a female. what would you tell yor daughter, "hey if yo can't reach me, don't drive drunk just jumpin to the car with some guy, its okay as long as hes nice and sober."

those people specifically intend to do with explicit aim to cause harm, and those which don't have as an element any consideration of intent to do a specifically harmful act. Crimes of negligence don't generally have as an element an intent to do harm; they only have a requirement the conduct is to a person of reasonable intelligence likely to cause harm.

*sigh..* thats like comparing a suicide mission to a banzai charge..

Here is the problem with your argument, driving under the influence is not a vehicular homicide, it is an act that brings you closer to committing a v.h. However just driving under any circumstances could leadto the death of others via your auto. A statistic was brought up saying DUIers made up 3 percent ofsome acts involving road deaths, injuries, and property damage. The problem though with you usingthe fact that its been proving that diving drunk leads to impairment and thus the obvious disasters, and that science was known tothe driver before he drank is this: the majority of drunk drivers are NOT pulled over and the majority do not kill. How do I know this? Most DUIers or even those convicted of V.H. will tell you they have droven many other times w/o incident. Not justifying anything, just taking into consideration what they take into consideration to offset the science.

And? You act as though there's some claimable right to go out drinking while not having to worry after any potential consequence. If one can't arrange transportation, one should stay home. Or go out and not get drunk.

Theres nothing stated thats illegal. We saw what happen when they tried prohibition so thats a no go. The law doesn't mandate transportation so thats a no go. And the law doesn't mandate being responsible when only your own health is effected. If the law doesn't mandate so and so is it not by default a right your entitled to?!

the consequence you speak of is within the context of my scenarios just an attempt by law enforcement to recatch the small fish that slipped through the fishnet. If a person has actually made it to their backseat and has curled up under a blanket in a safe and locked vehicle instad of staying in a dangerous place or trying to drive home I'd pat them on the back not throw them in the klink. If its legal to walk into the bar let it be legal to walk out.

Without sounding to paranoid we must ask our selves when the thin line between enforcing justice and meeting that precious collar quota has been crossed. No bobble headed,wobble legged wino has ever put me in dangerous and never will, this I know..