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Sobriety is one of the conditions of the social contract you sign (literally, on your license application) in exchange for access to society's roads. Jail time

Sobriety is one of the conditions of the social contract you sign (literally, on your license application) in exchange for access to society's roads. Jail time is not really appropriate. Really, you should just lose access to public roads. But license revocation is adulthood revocation for all but the privileged few in SF, NYC, and maybe Chicago. In most of this country you can't get groceries or primary medical care without driving, and you certainly can't hold a job or provide a normal life for your children. A five-figure fine and even a month or two in jail is many times less severe than permanent loss of driving privileges; that's life-destroying (pretty much your only option is to drop everything and move to a high-cost-of-living area of a high-cost-of-living city to get adequate public transit coverage).

serge2k 11y ago
So don't drive drunk. Oh look, problem solved.
- gnaritas 11y ago
  No, not solved; DUI applies to more than alcohol, the issue isn't so simplistic.
kwhitefoot 11y ago
Fines should be related to one's income. In Finland you can be unlucky enough to be fined a quarter of a million Euros for speeding if your income is high enough, same in Switzerland I think.
titanomachy 11y ago
> license revocation is adulthood revocation for all but the privileged few in SF, NYC, and maybe Chicago This is almost certainly true in America, but keep in mind that some other societies view driving somewhat differently. America represents less than one twentieth of the world's population. In major European cities, at least, car ownership seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
- nmrm2 11y ago
  It's not really true in America, either. The (small) European cities I've lived in have far better transit than even major US cities, but any American city with a "greater metro area" population in the millions will have enough public transit that you can survive without a car and without living in an extremely costly area. It requires some walking and biking, and some employment options do disappear. But most of those employment options are recoverable because the salaries (e.g. at suburban office parks) pay well enough to cover the cost of a cab from the nearest bus stop to the office every morning. IME the lack of public will to walk a half mile, ride a bike in the rain, or wait ten minutes at a bus stop is by far the greatest barrier to use of public transit in America.
  - plonh 11y ago
    Using the word "salary", and talking about paying cabs to drive to buses shows that you ignoring the reality of a huge segment of the working population, who work hourly, and have childcare needs.
    - nmrm2 11y ago
      No, I'm not. I was giving two conditional scenarios, and dismissing the "salary" one precisely because the people you're telling me I'm ignoring are unlikely to work in those locations. To reiterate: IF you are not working in an office park off an interstate near an affluent suburb, most mid-sized American cities have enough transit to get by. IF you are working in an office park off an interstate near an affluent suburb, then you're probably making enough that you can stitch together a combination of public transit and taxis to get to work from a low-rent area. And yeah, long commutes suck when you're paying for child care. Which is why a lot of people choose a child care facility close to work. Basically, my point was that I know a lot of Europeans whose commute involves > 1/2 mile of walking. And also a lot of Americans who live in cities that "don't have any public transit" because they have to walk 1/2 - 1 mile to get to a stop that takes them directly to work. I'm not saying American public transit doesn't need to improve. Just that if Americans always demand door-to-door service, then public transit will never be good enough. And, more over, will always suck because that's an impossible demand.
gnaritas 11y ago
> Sobriety is one of the conditions of the social contract you sign (literally, on your license application) in exchange for access to society's roads. Travel via the common means is a right, not a privileged; such laws are unjust. That driving requires you make such promises is absurd.
- nmrm2 11y ago
  > Travel via the common means is a right, not a privilege Rights aren't unconditional. > That driving requires you make such promises is absurd. Here's why driving requires you to make these types of promises: http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/traffic_deaths_number/en/ http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/traffic_deaths_...
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    > Rights aren't unconditional. Conditions would make them privileges. > Here's why driving requires you to make these types of promises Not relevant, that it's dangerous doesn't change my opinion that it's absurd.
    - nmrm2 11y ago
      > Conditions would make them privileges. This is a common misunderstanding. Rights are unconditional is the sense that they apply to everyone equally. But almost all are conditional in the sense that they don't give carte blanc permission without exception. It might help to think of rights like axioms. (A & (A -> B)) -> B is true unconditionally. It is an axiom. But it is also conditional. It is universally true, and yet, B is not universally true. Nearly all rights we have are unconditionally conditional in this way. They always apply to everyone (universally), but that doesn't mean there aren't conditions (that get applied universally). For instance, being convicted of murder triggers conditions on most of the rights we have as citizens. Not all of them, but most. Privileges are different from rights because they don't have to apply to each person equally in the way rights do. The two are separated by the fact that rights are extended universally and privileges aren't, not by the presence or absence of conditions.
charles2013 11y ago
the proliferation of driverless cars could make the debate about losing access to public roads (i.e. losing one's drivers license) much more interesting.

serge2k 11y ago

So don't drive drunk. Oh look, problem solved.

gnaritas 11y ago
No, not solved; DUI applies to more than alcohol, the issue isn't so simplistic.

kwhitefoot 11y ago

Fines should be related to one's income. In Finland you can be unlucky enough to be fined a quarter of a million Euros for speeding if your income is high enough, same in Switzerland I think.

titanomachy 11y ago

> license revocation is adulthood revocation for all but the privileged few in SF, NYC, and maybe Chicago This is almost certainly true in America, but keep in mind that some other societies view driving somewhat differently. America represents less than one twentieth of the world's population. In major European cities, at least, car ownership seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

nmrm2 11y ago
It's not really true in America, either. The (small) European cities I've lived in have far better transit than even major US cities, but any American city with a "greater metro area" population in the millions will have enough public transit that you can survive without a car and without living in an extremely costly area. It requires some walking and biking, and some employment options do disappear. But most of those employment options are recoverable because the salaries (e.g. at suburban office parks) pay well enough to cover the cost of a cab from the nearest bus stop to the office every morning. IME the lack of public will to walk a half mile, ride a bike in the rain, or wait ten minutes at a bus stop is by far the greatest barrier to use of public transit in America.
- plonh 11y ago
  Using the word "salary", and talking about paying cabs to drive to buses shows that you ignoring the reality of a huge segment of the working population, who work hourly, and have childcare needs.
  - nmrm2 11y ago
    No, I'm not. I was giving two conditional scenarios, and dismissing the "salary" one precisely because the people you're telling me I'm ignoring are unlikely to work in those locations. To reiterate: IF you are not working in an office park off an interstate near an affluent suburb, most mid-sized American cities have enough transit to get by. IF you are working in an office park off an interstate near an affluent suburb, then you're probably making enough that you can stitch together a combination of public transit and taxis to get to work from a low-rent area. And yeah, long commutes suck when you're paying for child care. Which is why a lot of people choose a child care facility close to work. Basically, my point was that I know a lot of Europeans whose commute involves > 1/2 mile of walking. And also a lot of Americans who live in cities that "don't have any public transit" because they have to walk 1/2 - 1 mile to get to a stop that takes them directly to work. I'm not saying American public transit doesn't need to improve. Just that if Americans always demand door-to-door service, then public transit will never be good enough. And, more over, will always suck because that's an impossible demand.

gnaritas 11y ago

> Sobriety is one of the conditions of the social contract you sign (literally, on your license application) in exchange for access to society's roads. Travel via the common means is a right, not a privileged; such laws are unjust. That driving requires you make such promises is absurd.

nmrm2 11y ago
> Travel via the common means is a right, not a privilege Rights aren't unconditional. > That driving requires you make such promises is absurd. Here's why driving requires you to make these types of promises: http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/traffic_deaths_number/en/ http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/traffic_deaths_...
- gnaritas 11y ago
  > Rights aren't unconditional. Conditions would make them privileges. > Here's why driving requires you to make these types of promises Not relevant, that it's dangerous doesn't change my opinion that it's absurd.
  - nmrm2 11y ago
    > Conditions would make them privileges. This is a common misunderstanding. Rights are unconditional is the sense that they apply to everyone equally. But almost all are conditional in the sense that they don't give carte blanc permission without exception. It might help to think of rights like axioms. (A & (A -> B)) -> B is true unconditionally. It is an axiom. But it is also conditional. It is universally true, and yet, B is not universally true. Nearly all rights we have are unconditionally conditional in this way. They always apply to everyone (universally), but that doesn't mean there aren't conditions (that get applied universally). For instance, being convicted of murder triggers conditions on most of the rights we have as citizens. Not all of them, but most. Privileges are different from rights because they don't have to apply to each person equally in the way rights do. The two are separated by the fact that rights are extended universally and privileges aren't, not by the presence or absence of conditions.

charles2013 11y ago

the proliferation of driverless cars could make the debate about losing access to public roads (i.e. losing one's drivers license) much more interesting.