Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Drunk Driving Laws Are Absurd - Mark R. Crovelli

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Excerpt:
In other words, what the State and other logic-eschewing groups would like for us to believe is the following:

A. When a man is drunk, his "impaired judgment" makes him discount the possibility of getting into a horrible accident that might kill or injure him or someone else. As a result of discounting this risk, he is likely to go ahead and drive drunk anyway.

B. This same drunken man, who thinks he can cheat death on the highway, will suddenly see the light, shut off his engine, and walk home if the state merely threatens him with a stint in jail if he drives.

I thought it'd be an interesting perspective for folks who are accustomed to countering the "banning guns will end gun crime" argument.

Also from the same author: Drunk Driving Laws Cause Drunk Driving Accidents

All I know is I NEVER get behind the wheel if I've even had a TASTE.

I knew a guy who'd had one and only one at a Mother's Day party, and had a pedestrian step out from between two cars on the drive home that night. He never saw her, struck her, and she died. Turns out SHE was drunk, but they didn't know that until later.

Anyway, cops on the scene said if did not have alcohol on his breath, it would have been written up as a simple accident. He wasn't speeding or in any way driving unsafely. Instead, they took him away in cuffs.

As it was, he beat an involuntary manslaughter rap, and his insurance company paid policy limit to the victim's family.

But that one drink cost him a ton in legal fees, a lot of stress and worry during a time when he was also battling cancer, and just about landed him in the pokey.

Deterrence works, for me. If I drink, I don't drive.

I've heard it said many times from people who study such things - that the severity of punishment has no statistical relationship to reducing the crime.

That is to say, whether a drunk driving charge results in a one month suspension, a three month suspension, a one year suspension or a lifetime suspension - the places with the different penalties have the same amount of drunk driving - on average.

However - the perceived chance of being caught - has a huge affect on the amount of drunk driving arrests. In places that have regular roadblocks in all places and at all hours - we see a noticable reduction in the amount of people driving on the roads drunk.

In BC, where frequent road-blocks are the norm (during Christmas holidays and near New Years - one can almost bet they'll have to drive through at least one road-black on the way home) there has been a huge reduction in the amount of people driving drunk. In BC the feeling among many is becoming - "I'll get caught in a road-block - so I can't take the chance of drinking and driving".

While many (who don't study such things) believe that stiffer penalties on crime reduce criminal behavior - people who study such things say that the severity of the punishment bears very little, if any, statistical relationship to the reduction in criminal behavior.

One only has to look at America's "War on Drugs" to see the accuracy in that. Penalties for using and selling drugs in America are the harshest in the western world - and yet America has the largest amount of incarcerated people as a percentage of population. Therefore we can deduce that very severe penalties handed out for drug use in America are having little to no effect on reducing drug use.

As New York city found out - if you want to reduce murders in your city - ticket people for spitting on the sidewalk, not paying subway fares and for littering. Create a sense of pervasive law and order in your region - make people think - if I commit a crime here - I'll be arrested. Don't worry about the severity of the sentence - just make sure there is a public perception that breaking the law in a given location will result in a high odds of arrest and conviction.

I liked his idea of reducing or eliminating the red tape for taxi service to make them more affordable. Seems like that would have a bigger impact than reducing the legal limit to .00000002 or whatever. I wonder why the MADD folks aren�t all over this���.

Fortunately, road blocks are unconstitutional in Wisconsin.

When folks that are driving impaired and kill others, folks that are putting on make up, lighting up a cig, putting in a CD, looking for change in the center console, turning around to yell at the kids and reading while driving.................are all treated by the courts as felons and by the insurance company as risks, then maybe drunk driving will be looked at as something other than posturing by the 'concerned', and a way to make money for lawyers and the State.

if i had my way, the first time someone was caught driving under the influence, they would do 30 days in jail and lose their drivers license for 1 year. i'd have them do 1 year in jail for the second offense. i have absolutely no pity on anyone who drives under the influence.

IMO those who choose to drink and drive should be put so far back in jail that they must be fed with a pea shooter.

I am prejudice.

Hard for me not to be having lost two good friends to drunks driving.

BCR

and how do you feel about the cute gal in the car next to you putting on her eye liner while driving? Or the guy reading the paper? Want them put away too?

After 30 years of policing, I can tell you that when the incidence of drunk driving is high, injuries and deaths on the highway are equally high. Can't tell you the number of families I have met because of alcohol related deaths, both as a result of drunk driving and domestic violence.

In this day and age, with the educational material that's available and the designated driver push, anyone who drives drunk deserves jail . . . . . and flogging.

I no longer drin, but when I did i knew not to drive drunk. I knew that when sober.
The trouble was when I was drunk all that faded from memory.

I don't know why you'd be glad your State doesn't have road blocks.

I'm SO glad my Province not only has them - I'm glad we have a LOT of them!

As a result - we have far far fewer drunks on the road now than we did 10, 20 and 30 years ago. Our roads now are so much safer. Our courts ruled (correctly in my opinion) that the loss of privacy from having police road-blocks was more than out-weighed by the societal benefits of getting drunks off the road.

I know of too many lost lives due to drunk drivers - including my best friend and long-time hunting buddy.

The only change I'd like - is to have more of them! If you aren't breaking the law - you have nothing to fear from a road-block!

On further deliberation - pertaining to what I wrote - thought I'd better add:

Perhaps I feel this way about road-blocks because 99% of the time I'm dealing with the R.C.M.P. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) when I get pulled over - and I have the utmost respect for the way 99% of them conduct themselves. True professionals.

My few dealings with American police have left me with a distinctly different impression about the way they conducted themselves.

My pregnant teen-age bride was killed by a drunk driver. Drunk driving is not an excercise of "freedom." Arresting officers aren't "brutal instuments" of the state. Quoting some jerk-off about how it is depriving some one of their freedom of action is vile. The more time drunk drivers spend incarcerated or off the streets not driving preferably for a loooooong time is a positive. I know there are those amongst you that have lost loved ones, relatives and friends to drunk drivers and must think and feel the same way I do.

I'm all for five year prison sentences for second offenses. Prison may not rehabilitate, but thats five years of a drunk NOT putting us at risk.

This statement, in any of its many forms, is completely invalid unless you accompany it by its unspoken second half: "...as long as the government is not corrupt."

But of course the government is always corrupt.

My pregnant teen-age bride was killed by a gun. Guns are not an exercise of "freedom." Arresting officers aren't "brutal instruments" of the state. Quoting some jerk-off about how it is depriving some one of their freedom of action is vile. The more time gun owners spend incarcerated or off the streets not shooting preferably for a loooooong time is a positive. I know there are those amongst you that have lost loved ones, relatives and friends to guns and must think and feel the same way I do.
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To equate second amendment rights with drunk driving or vehicular homicide sure doesn't give legal gun ownership a ringing endorsement.

I disagree.

I have never been stopped at a road-block - by a government.

I have - many times - been stopped by the RCMP - Canada's national police force - checking to see if I've been drinking and driving. Every one of them receives para-military training -in one location - while they learn their job - and they are renoun the world over for their professionalism and their courtesy.

Their road-blocks have resulted in a huge reduction in the amount of people drinking a driving - and as a result - a great reduction in the amount of needless deaths and injuries due to people engaging in that criminal act.

To pretend that some anarchist utopia - with no law-enforcement would be better - is absurd.

I'm proud of Canada's national police force - and proud of the job they do.

I hope they set up even more-road blocks in the future - to protect me and my children - from those who practice criminal behaviour.

I do not have even a taste within 24 hours of driving but my truck is a little bigger and a lot heavier than most. I get caught with a DWI and I am dome for life.