Angry Beavers
Footballguy
You can say DUI laws are too lenient, but what if it is your loved one that is hurt or worse as a result of someone driving impaired?
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Drunk Driving Penalities, Too Strict/Lenient/Just Right (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter fantasycurse42
- Start date
Short Corner
Footballguy
Drunken knight
Footballguy
Angry Beavers
Footballguy
Short Corner
Footballguy
Short Corner
Footballguy
Mandatory 6 month suspension(actually more like 9 because the clock doesn't start until you are processed) fine between $2000-$5000. If you blow a .16 you have to undergo psychological evaluations before having your license reinstated. ETA---If you fail you have to wait 3-6 months to retake and have to pay for mandatory counseling.
From what I am told the same penalties apply for DUI on a bike.
ETA---- reading up on it now, if you have been rung up once and blow a .03 it's a mandatory two year suspension.
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Drunken knight
Footballguy
danke
Short Corner
Footballguy
rockaction
Footballguy
According to the initial position of MADD, they lobbied for drunk driving laws to be .20 or above. Then the insurance companies got involved, MADD became zealots, its original founder left because of it and now we've got .08 across the country.
Too strict.
eta* You'd be surprised just how quickly one gets to .08 at a restaurant, even if it's only a beer or two or a bottle of wine.
Too strict.
eta* You'd be surprised just how quickly one gets to .08 at a restaurant, even if it's only a beer or two or a bottle of wine.
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NutterButter
Footballguy
Probably too strict on the low end and too lenient on the high end. I took the average.
Epic Problem
Footballguy
Fine with the penalties, but not where the line in the sand has been drawn. Think .08 is a bit excessive and have heard that Utah was dropping it to .05, which is a joke.
rockaction
Footballguy
I think you're mistaking what lenient means in this context. Are the laws too lenient, i.e., too accommodating of drunk drivers.
eta* Yeah, judging from your argument you mean to be complaining about the "too strict" vote. You're arguing that the people that think the laws and enforcement of them is too strict aren't taking proper considerations for the potential to have a friend or loved one hurt in the car wreck. That's what I think you're trying to say.
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fantasycurse42
Footballguy Jr.
What about the person who was hit and killed by them? Was their life ruined, their family, friends?
I drank yesterday from 12 until about 430. Then ate a huge meal, took a nap, then dessert and coffee. I didn’t get behind the wheel until 1045, pretty sure my BAC was 0 when I did, just not worth it.
& it wasn’t the penalties that deterred me, it was the moral obligation to my wife & kids... the penalties are a joke, imo.
Vanilla Guerrilla
Footballguy
When it gets to .05, that won't be enough. Eventually it'll get to the point where trace amounts are enough to get drilled. And until the tolerance is zero, someone will complain that the BAL is too high.
For the record, I don't take the chance if I am driving. The cost in insurance and legal bills is enough to make things rough for years unless you're making 6 figures, not even counting the inconvenience. I probably drove drunk once when I was a dumb 21 year old. Realized when I got where I was going that I was buzzed. Haven't done it again since then. Also grew up with a father that drank a half bottle of JD every night and drove drunk all the time. I was in the truck with him as an 11 year old when he drove down the wrong lane of a pretty busy 2 lane street (Was not busy when he did it).
I think at the low end, the old .1/.12 was fine. I think .08 is low, but I also think that people that blow high enough to be truly impaired and do it multiple times, the penalties are too low.
Juxtatarot
Footballguy
A beer or two won't get you there. If you drink a whole bottle of wine by yourself, yeah, that would probably do it.
rockaction
Footballguy
Depends how much you drank. You'd be surprised how long it stays in your system. And no, I've never gotten a DUI so there's no crusade here, I just think laws are too strict because of the level they're testing for. I think most people are competent at .12.
And it's good that you didn't drink with your wife and kids in the car. You do indeed have a moral/familial obligation to them.
rockaction
Footballguy
Beer or three, depending on weight. California puts out a chart every year. I'm three beers. That seems awfully low, especially since
- they're basing it off of macro domestics.
- I'm two twenty on a lean day
- And serious food and drink people easily polish a bottle of wine off with a meal. It's part of the meal.
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Pipes
Footballguy
This. Why are DUI's lumped in one group? I'd really like to answer both for the poll. Too harsh if someone has a couple of drinks and gets pull over for something like a burnt out tail light and blows a .08. Yes it was stupid to drive but it's not worthy of jail time, long licenses suspension etc...If it's your first time. Still stupid and should be penalized but in that instance I'm not sure it's really worse than someone running a red light or driving 15 mph over the limit. I'm talking barely at .08 no noticeable impairment.
Now if you're in the .15 range the penalty isn't harsh enough. There's a point were people are clearly impaired and should face steep fines, license suspensions and perhaps even jail for the first time. For sure jail on the 1st one if you cause an accident...even a minor one.
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fantasycurse42
Footballguy Jr.
I’m competent at .12, that doesn’t mean my reaction time and other abilities aren’t impaired.
Pipes
Footballguy
Are there a bunch of fatal accidents involving people at .08? Not being facetious here it's just whenever I see in the news about a DUI fatality it's almost always someone well above the .08 limit. Almost always involves someone seriously impaired.
fantasycurse42
Footballguy Jr.
I’m sure of the thousands and thousands of people who are killed annually in a DUI accident, some have levels of .08-.1
Apple Jack
Footballguy
chet
Footballguy
Lots of things impair your driving ability Being tired is one that comes to mind.
Judge Smails
Footballguy
Its a 15-20K mistake for first timers
ILUVBEER99
Footballguy
rockaction
Footballguy
Pulled this from a quick Google search.
Choose Your State. Most states have now set .08% blood alcohol concentration (BAC) as the legal limit for driving under the influence (DUI) or driving while impaired (DWI). For commercial drivers, a BAC of .04% can result in a DUI or DWI conviction nationwide.
DUI & DWI Legal Limit, Laws, & Enforcement | DMV.ORG
https://www.dmv.org/automotive-law/dui.php
Apple Jack
Footballguy
Apple Jack
Footballguy
How many fatalities happen with people driving with no BAC? Correlation does not equal causation. .08 is asinine. At least the consequences are.
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parasaurolophus
Footballguy
I agree with the sentiment that there should be stiffer penalties as BAC rises. I also think there should be stiffer penalties if the person is actually pulled over because they were driving erratically vs stopped for a broken tail light or for expired plates.
Zow
Footballguy
You're forgetting the mandatory minimum ~1500 fine as well. AZ is probably the harshest state in the country for DUI.
And you're buddy should have called me.
Zow
Footballguy
In terms of penalties, yes.
There was a court case awhile back (South Dakota v. Dole) where it was found constitutional for the federal government to withhold funding for roadways to states who wouldn't lower the legal limit to .08. So, I believe it's .08 everywhere. That said, many states, like mine, also make it unlawful to drive while impaired to the slightest degree from drugs or alcohol regardless of the limit.
bucksoh
Footballguy
I'm calling B.S. on those made up numbers. Cops don't even care or look at if the driver of accidents/deaths were using their phones. They are only concerned if they use alcohol.
bucksoh
Footballguy
Yeah, it's usually the person driving texting/using their phone that cause the accident and then the person with the low B.A.C.gets busted for the DUI. Cops don't give a crap if they're using their phone.
bucksoh
Footballguy
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
If they killed somebody else they care. I imagine if it was a single vehicle crash where only the driver dies you are probably right.
Zow
Footballguy
The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) has run some extensive tests on this issue.* Perhaps ironically (although it makes sense if you think about it), their study suggests that people drive better with a drink in their system and it's affect is pretty neutral up until the .08 range. I'd agree that a person likely isn't significantly impaired until he gets above a .10 or higher.
The fundamental issue posed by this thread is a challenging one. I'm pretty convinced that just about anybody who has socially drank at a point in his or her life has driven while impaired at least once. I consider myself a very law-abiding person but I can remember at least twice where I shouldn't have driven. I've also seen hundreds of cases now where people's lives are substantially impacted because of DUI convictions as my jurisdiction has very strict penalties and the statutes really limit plea bargaining. So, it seems pretty harsh for an aberrant mistake. That said, I've seen firsthand the lives it has lost.
The theoretical challenge to legislating DUI is that when a person actually gets impaired he likely isn't acting rationally. Strict laws are usually designed to deter people from engaging in the action. However, a person not acting or thinking rationally is far less likely to be deterred because deterrence assumes the amount of rationality needed to at least perform a cost-benefit analysis. So, deterrence by the very nature of the crime is less likely to work. So, do the laws then need to be that strict?
I've had this discussion at DUI seminars with other lawyers who work prominently in this field. The general sentiment, which I agree with, is that the laws are probably too strict for first-timers but may not strict enough for repeat offenders. Personally, I have a ton of sympathy for a first-timer** who made a genuine mistake versus somebody who, for whatever reasons, keeps drinking and drinking.
*I'm really hoping some studies will be done soon in this same sense for THC so we can get away from strict liability laws for driving with THC or its metabolite in one's system.
** However, I recall a study at some seminar suggesting that a person gets arrested for a DUI every 200 or so times he drives drunk. So, maybe I shouldn't be so sympathetic since plausibly the person probably has ton it several dozens to a couple hundred times.
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Zow
Footballguy
I'm not entirely sure where you're getting this sentiment from. It's not consistent with my experience.
Additionally, it's irrelevant who causes the crash in regards to the decision to charge a DUI. At least in my jurisdiction, a DUI is a DUI regardless of how it was discovered the person drove impaired to the slightest degree and/or with a BAC or BrAC of >.08%.
bucksoh
Footballguy
They don't. They only check for b.a.c. Many P.D. even have incentives for dui's.
Zow
Footballguy
It's not an element of the crime of DUI that the defendant cause any sort of damage or harm.
I genuinely don't know why you think police are trained to only look for DUIs in an accident. Most departments have an officer trained in accident reconstruction. In major crashes with injuries generally tox screens are run on both drivers and both cars are inventoried (for things like cell phones close by).
Do cops look for DUI factors in accidents? Absolutely -- as DUI is probably the leading cause for accidents. But I think you're inaccurately stating that other factors are completely ignored.
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
They do. Even if they don't want to the insurance company will definitely be forcing their hands. If neither party has insurance or money then maybe they dont but how big of a sample size is that?
bucksoh
Footballguy
I work in a hospital, my experience is usually the dead person or the one caused the accident is clutching their phone. Police come and want bac drawn on the person who was in the accident but didn't cause it but because they were drinking. They get charged by the police even though it's the idiot in the next bed that caused the accident!
Zow
Footballguy
I'm not really sure how to respond to this. I made three separate statements that I'm pretty confident in making. Is this where I respond with a curriculum vitae?
rockaction
Footballguy
Considering we're at .08, have you questioned exactly what it is they're trying to deter?
Because it sounds to me like it's bringing you car out at all, never mind more sinister things that I think are up in the movement from hearing stories about MADD and the insurance companies that are responsible for this nonsense.
Zow
Footballguy
The MADD stuff aside, I could see a good argument for making the legal limit .08 if we're trying to deter people from getting to the more dangerous levels. However, at least as it pertains to my jurisdiction, I wish the legislature didn't also tie the hands of the lawyers handling the cases from plea bargaining to more lenient counts/sentences/penalties while doing so.
rockaction
Footballguy
Fair enough. I was thinking they were trying to deter you from taking your car to go out at all, or, there seem to be prohibition elements within the more vocal members of lowering the legal limit.
If that sounds conspiratorial, I remember the funny alliances behind the legalization of marijuana movement. I learned a lot about policy from the movement and how disparate groups will both get together and also lie about their cause (med marijuana, among the more fringe elements of the movement, was never anything but a step to outright legalization.) This seems to be the converse.
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