drunk driving and the legal limit

The problem with drunk driving laws is that they're very good for nailing the poor sap who has two beers after work, or the woman who has two glasses of wine after work, and they blow .08. Lock 'em up.

But the laws don't do anything to prevent that dumbass alky with a revoked license from still drinking a case and getting in his car. He may or may not get caught before he may or may not kill someone.

I don't know what the answer is, but it's not what we have now.

PS: Although I favor anti-smoking laws for the workplace and restaurants, I'm never going to tell some poor sap he can't smoke outdoors, or in a bar that doesn't serve food.

 

damn. i agree 100 percent with hondo. i guess there's a first time for everything.

unfortunately, the solution is something that will never become a reality: viable public transportation, like they have in major european cities. i'm talking new york city style public subway, rail and bus service.

 

You won't see sobriety checkpoints in Texas anytime soon. They are illegal and will remain so for the next 2 years till the Legislature meets again.

But you can't reduce the alcohol limit to zero. A freaking Dr Pepper will make a breath machine record a .04; I learned that in Boy Scouts.

 

I have always held that sobriety checkpoints are unconstitutional, but they are allowed to stand because of the moral popularity.


They are illegal in Texas? Did not know that. Interesting.

 

Dr. Pepper has alcohol? So that was the 23rd flavor.

 

Hmm, a Dr. Pepper sounds good right now. A 12-pack that is!

 

THERE IS NO PERIOD IN DR PEPPER!!!!!!!!

 

As others have alluded to, the dropping of BAC levels to .08 has nothing to do with getting seriously impaired drivers off the road and everything to do with raising money by handing out DUI's.

Now, if we want, as a society, to make the law explicit, to say that it is illegal to drive after drinking any alcohol at all, I don't have a huge problem with that. Unfortunately, it would require some kind of improvements in infrastructure and public transportation in the vast majority of the geographic country. That's just common sense.

We, as a society, however, are less interested in getting problem drunk drivers off the streets and more interested in collecting funds through three-beer DUI fines rather than taxes. If you don't believe this, go sit in at your local traffic court and see how many DUI's get handed out to people in the .08 to .12 BAC range.

 

serpentine.....serpentine

 

Also legal in Montana, as long as it's not the driver. If the driver does have an open container, it's a $25 fine. Hey, the feds made us pass a law, fuckers!

 

Funny how you never heard much about state's rights when they were actually, you know, being attacked.

Didn't Louisiana hold off for a ridiculously long time on the open container law, thereby forfeiting their federal highway dollars?

 

I don't know about Lousiana, but I know that Montana was one of the last three states (Indiana and one other I can' remember, maybe La.) to pass one after the threat of losing federal highway dollars came down from on high.