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So then you think it should be .001. How much caffeine or sugar should uncle sam limit us to, I'm sure eating and driving, or changing the radio station is as dangerous. Many things we due everyday in the car are more distracting, you have to draw the line somewhere based on evidence. It's been done and concluded that .08 is it.
I support zero tolerance. Driving a motor vehicle is NOT a right, but a serious responsibility. The government, state or federal, has an absolute right to regulate who can drive and how, from their physical ability to their to handle a vehicle, and drinking, smoking pot or using some prescription drugs impairs your ability to drive safely.
You want to drink, then don't drive. You want to drive, then don't drink or smoke a joint or take that perfectly legal prescription painkiller.
Yeah, and while you're at it..................do SOMETHING about the cellphone-idiots!
If you read the article, banning even hands-free cell phone devices is also a recommendation.
I don't disagree with that either; when somebody calls me when I'm driving, even though it's hands free, it's distracting. I generally won't even answer when driving unless I'm somewhere relatively safe like on a low traffic street/road I know well, and if it's just somebody calling to chat, I'll tell them I'll call them back.
That 31% should be 0. 31 is too high. People shouldn't drive drunk. It's not difficult to grasp, yet people still do it. People will always be irresponsible idiots who either don't think at all or only think about themselves, but if that number can keep dwindling I say go for it. I've said it many times before and I'll say it again - fewer things **** me off more than drunk drivers. It's one of my biggest pet peeves - not to mention something that is incredibly dangerous and risky.
Ideally no one should be driving under ANY impairment or distraction. Whether it's alcohol, drugs, using a cell phone, whatever, in any amount. We know all it takes is one glance down at a phone to kill you or someone else. For some people, it could be one drink to cause a crash. If we can regulate this to punish people who in any way make the road dangerous for others, as we do in other circumstances, why not?
I personally am a lightweight. I feel one drink. I choose not to drive after even one drink. But then again I'm responsible.
As I posted, 70% of alcohol related crashes had a BAC of .15 or higher. Clearly, that's the group that needs to be punished more. With .01 to .07 being only being 5% of all fatalities, should we really be focusing on .05-.07? The time it takes to arrest someone that's causing <5% of all traffic fatalities is time taken away from officers to pursue the high BAC drivers that are far more dangerous. Clearly even with .08 as the limit there's still a major problem with high BAC drivers. Lowering the limit isn't going to change the incidence rate for those already at .08 and higher. It's just grasping at a less dangerous fringe. Our idea of "Drunk driving" where the driver can't focus on objects or swerves from lane to lane doesn't happen at .05.
If you really want to reduce traffic fatalities, target high BACs, repeat BACs, distracted drivers (makeup, texting, reading, etc) and young drivers. With a finite number of officers on the road, targeting .05 drivers is just going to take away manpower.
Theoretically, sure there needs to be some limit but the lower we get the more arbitrary it becomes.
Just like the prison system, let's not forget that there is a HUGE industry around drunk driving - fines to the government, required classes to take, equipment for cars, etc.
Maybe we won't demonize AS MUCH someone picked up for .05 or .03 as we do for .08? Because as much as we hear about multiple offenses, they have it on their record for a LIFETIME with many unintended consequences regarding jobs, etc. Or IS IT intended?
We need to start looking at this issue more intelligently.
Zero tolerance can be interpreted to mean zero distractions/influences =
no drinking,
no drugging, including
no cold medicine for the last 24 hours,
no sleep medication for the last 24 hours,
no pain medication for the last 24 hours,
no radio,
no cellphones (even handsfree),
no passengers - especially no infants or toddlers!, etc.
Now, how far do we want to go with zero distractions?
"Drivers with a BAC of .01 percent, the lowest level recorded in the dataset, were 46 percent more likely to be solely blamed for the crash than a sober driver, according to the results published in the journal Injury Prevention".Buzzed drivers under legal limit still risk car accidents | Reuters
"The National Institutes of Health looked at more than one hundred studies on the subject. It found at .08 percent most people showed significant signs of impairment. But even at .05 percent, some struggled with a simulated driving test. Researchers documented changes in eye movement, visual perception and reaction time. The effects were stronger for sleep deprived and younger drivers." What's the difference between a blood alcohol level of .08 and .05? | 89.3 KPCC
I don't have a problem with it being lowered, if you want to drink do it at home or take a cab
Okay...46% HIGHER THAN WHAT? I'm not saying that the odds are ZERO, but that is not meaningful unless they tell us the BASE rate of accidents and then we can see what 46% higher than that actually is.
I'd be willing to say that having a cellphone conversation or a screaming toddler in the back seat raises accidents 46% too...but THAT is deemed acceptable.
Okay...46% HIGHER THAN WHAT? I'm not saying that the odds are ZERO, but that is not meaningful unless they tell us the BASE rate of accidents and then we can see what 46% higher than that actually is.
I didn't make it up, and I only posted it in response to someone who asked if there was data supporting it. From the link that I posted:
The authors looked at fatal car crash data from a U.S. national database of more than 570,000 collisions between 1994 and 2011 and found there appears to be no safe level of alcohol in the bloodstream when it comes to driving.
"This has a very wide range of implications," lead author David Phillips, a sociologist at University of California, San Diego, said. "For the individual driver it means don't drive while buzzed, and for a passenger, don't get in a car with a driver who is buzzed. Find a way to make the sober one the driver."
The data Phillips and his colleagues analyzed included blood alcohol content (BAC) measurements for the drivers as well as clear indicators of blame for the accident, such as which driver ran a red light or drove in the wrong lane.
Drivers with a BAC of .01 percent, the lowest level recorded in the dataset, were 46 percent more likely to be solely blamed for the crash than a sober driver, according to the results published in the journal Injury Prevention.Buzzed drivers under legal limit still risk car accidents | Reuters
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